California Gov. Gavin Newsom praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for suspending his presidential campaign last Sunday.
Newsom also suggested DeSantis may have saved his political career by dropping out of the presidential race.
"I think if he continued on," Newsom said during a Thursday interview with MSNBC's Alexa Wagner, "[DeSantis] was going to get trounced in his own state."
Newsom referenced a Tuesday video shared by DeSantis on X featuring the Florida governor discussing NFL playoff predictions with his son.
"Just on a humanizing level, having spent a tiny bit of time with him but obviously studying him for some time, he’s a different guy," Newsom told Wagner. "Now I saw him with his kid on a video, I’m like, Who’s that guy?"
DeSantis was "wound up" and "joyless" on the campaign trail, Newsom said.
"You can say what you want about Trump," the California governor continued. "He seems a little less wound up. He is winding up in terms of his rhetoric but a little more entertaining in that respect."
Newsom said a presidential candidate has to know why they're seeking higher office.
"I never felt like he had a why," Newsom said of the Florida governor.
Newsom noted DeSantis, along with other Republican presidential candidates, attempted to "out-Trump" former President Donald Trump being the commanding front-runner throughout the 2024 primary season.
"With Trump in the race, you were going to somehow try to deconstruct and connect and attach yourself to Trumpism with Trump in the race and sort of take it from him?" Newsom said.
Newsom said he didn't mean for his comment to come across as a "cheap shot," though said the premise of fellow Republican presidential candidates believing they could take on Trump was "delusional."
"Maybe you didn't think he was going to run, maybe you thought he was going to be convicted earlier for a crime," he said. "I don't know what they were thinking, but it was so predictable. All of this was predictable."
The California governor also commented on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's insistence to remain in the race despite trailing Trump by 10 points in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.
"I don't know any state she can win, let alone her own state [of South Carolina]," he said of Haley, who is the lone remaining competitor for the Republican nomination.
Trump and Haley will face off in the upcoming Nevada primary on Feb. 8.
