BREAKING: Vivek Ramaswamy drops out of presidential race after Iowa caucus, endorses President Trump

Following the Iowa Republican caucus on Monday evening, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump for the party's nominee. He came in 4th in the Iowa caucus behind frontrunner Donald Trump, second place Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley. Ramaswamy had 8 percent of the vote and was congratulated in Trump's victory speech, with Trump saying he did "a hell of a job."

After he dropped out of the race, he endorsed Trump to be the next president.

"I will stick to the truth tonight," he said, "the first hard truth, and this one is hard for me. I've got to admit this. But we've looked at it every which way, and I think it is true that we did not achieve the surprise that we wanted to deliver tonight, and I think that's just a hard fact that we're gonna have to accept as a campaign."



"And the question is what do we do that is right for our country. And so Apoorva and I, we actually didn't make this contingency plan before, everybody told us to, but we said no we're not doing that. But we talked about it tonight, we took a little time in our apartment in Des Moines before coming here, to make some hard choices. And I wanted to make a couple of announcements tonight to get the business out of the way and then I want to tell you where we're going.

"As of this moment," he continued, "we're going to suspend this presidential campaign. And this is going to have to be—there's no path for me to be the next president absent things that we don't want to see happen in this country. And I think that I am very worried for our country, I think we are skating on thin ice as a nation. We have done everything in our part to make, and everyone of us in this room have done our part to save this country and I am so proud of everyone of you who have lifted us up—but we're a campaign founded on the truth and that's why we have made this decision today," he told supporters.

He then turned to the next steps, addressing who he would endorse in his stead.

"And I'm also making the decision that this has to be an America First president in that White House. As I've said since the beginning, there are two America First candidates in this race. And earlier tonight I called Donald Trump to tell him that I congratulated him on his victory and now going forward he will have my full endorsement for the presidency," Ramaswamy continued.

Then he asked his supporters to join him in working to elect Trump, who took the Iowa caucus handily with over 50 percent of the vote. 

"And so I'm gonna ask you to follow me in taking our America First movement to the next level," he said.

Ramaswamy had supported Trump throughout his campaign, calling him the best president of the 21st century, promising to support him against Biden's weaponized DOJ, and vowing to remove himself from the ballots of any state that determined to pull Trump off the 2024 primary ballot over allegations on insurrection. 

He announced further that he would head out on the campaign trail with Trump and would appear with him at a rally in New Hampshire.