Trump won New York (his home state), and the media immediately treated the race as if it were over, repeating that message 24/7. And it worked. The nonstop media coverage (“It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”) moved the numbers, and in states where we had been leading or tied (like Maryland, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and California), our numbers plummeted, dropping 10–20 points in thirty-six hours.
On the night of May 3, after Indiana, the numbers showed there was no longer a viable path to victory, and so I ended my campaign. Doing so wasn’t easy. We had thousands of activists who had traveled from state to state to state, knocking on doors for us and making phone calls. They had poured their lives, their energy, their passion into the campaign. When I said we were suspending the campaign, one woman in the crowd let out a wail of pain that pierced me deeply; I could barely finish speaking.
Afterwards, I desperately wanted to stay and hug and thank every single volunteer. But I just couldn’t do it. Tears were streaming down my face, and I lacked the strength to stop them. With a battery of TV cameras watching, I damn sure wasn’t going to let the media try to turn “Lyin’ Ted” (Trump’s false but brutally effective nickname) into “Cryin’ Ted.” And so I went backstage to grieve with my family and closest advisors. Remarkably, Heidi stayed out with the crowd, spending over an hour thanking every single person there. I was immensely grateful that she did.
For the next couple months, I withdrew from politics. I spent a week down in Mexico, lounging in the pool with close friends, zip lining with my girls, playing hoops, and enjoying more than a few margaritas. And then I just let the political process play out.
Remember, in May of 2016, it wasn’t at all clear what type of general election campaign Trump was going to run, much less what kind of president he would be. On policy issues, he’d been all over the map: At various times, Trump had advocated for gun control, higher taxes, and the Gang of 8 amnesty bill. He’d been a Democrat, he’d supported and contributed to both Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, and he had described himself as “very pro-choice” and an enthusiastic supporter of partial-birth abortion.
All of those positions changed dramatically in the 2016 campaign, but campaign conversions have a way of not sticking very long. Especially since most Republican political consultants believe you should run to the middle in a general election and run away from any conservative positions you might have taken in the primary.
So I just watched and waited. At the time, I was deeply conflicted. I was certain I didn’t want Hillary to win; her policies, I had no doubt, would be a disaster for the nation. But there were also massive uncertainties as to what Trump would actually do as president. Too many Republicans had failed to deliver in the past; after eight years of Obama, we desperately needed a real conservative in the Oval Office, and we needed conservative policies to turn our country around. I wanted to do everything I could to maximize the chances of that.
Contrary to the media perception, my hesitancy wasn’t personal. For most of the campaign, on a personal level, Trump and I had gotten along quite well. At my invitation, we participated in a rally together on the steps of the Capitol. We both went out of our way to be nice to each other, to praise each other, and we were appealing to the same core voters: working-class Americans fed up with the Washington swamp.
Then, when the campaign clearly came down to just the two of us, we beat the living daylights out of each other. “Politics ain’t beanbag,” as the famous saying goes.
The next month, Trump asked to see me in D.C. I of course agreed, and we sat down at the National Republican Senatorial building. It was a friendly meeting, a little stiff, but Trump was relieved (and surprised) that I had suspended the campaign when I did. By not fighting to the bitter end—by suspending once it became clear there was no longer a realistic path to victory—we allowed his campaign to pivot to the general three months earlier than they would have otherwise.
At that meeting, Trump asked me if I’d be willing to give one of the prime-time speeches at the RNC national convention. I said, “Sure, I’d be happy to.” He didn’t ask for my endorsement, and I didn’t offer it.
I thought long and hard about that speech. At the time, I wasn’t yet ready to endorse. The reason was not that Trump had attacked my family, as the media later supposed. Both my wife and my dad, who were the targets of Trump’s ire, are strong, fiercely independent, and love our country. They had both laughed off his attacks at the time. The reason I wanted to hold back was that I had real doubts about what Trump actually believed, how he would campaign, and, if elected, how he would govern. Trump’s history had been all over the map—on virtually every policy issue under the sun—and we were in a moment in time when the stakes of getting it wrong were massive. I believed I was in a position where I could have a meaningful, positive influence on how he would campaign and what policies he would actually support.
I wanted to use the speech to encourage Trump to be more conservative. To lay out a path for him to reassure conservatives that he really meant to
