If anything proved the rightness of Donald Trump’s decision to choose Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his running mate, it was Trump’s own panic that he might have made a awful mistake in settling on Pence in the first place.
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Rolling out Pence as his vice presidential mate, Trump said in the Indiana Governor he has “found the leader” who will help deliver a safe society and a really prosperous society for all Americans.
The Indiana governor also backed Trump’s proposal for a wall on the southern US border and said Mexico would “absolutely” pay for it.
“Donald Trump is a good man and he will make a great President of the United States of America”, he praised.
But Trump was on the phone calling in to Fox News hours later anyway, teasing that he was yet to settle on a “final, final decision”, even though, keep in mind, he had already offered the job to Pence and Pence had accepted.
Skipping the traditional massive rally in favor of a low-key announcement in a Manhattan hotel, Trump tried to draw a sharp contrast between Pence, a soft-spoken conservative, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate. “We demand law and order”.
And there were Republicans with whom Trump personally felt far more comfortable: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“I thank Donald Trump for having the confidence in us”.
“One of the reasons is party unity, I have to be honest”, he said. Ted Cruz instead of Trump ahead of Indiana’s presidential primary.
Trump also used the campaign event to fire off criticism of his rival Hillary Clinton and address a number of other issues, including the manufacturing industry, evangelicals, and foreign policy.
Anti-Trump activists aimed to change party rules to unbind delegates and allow them to vote their “conscience”, opening up the nomination fight once more once the convention started.
The lack of support has Trump’s backers in New Jersey seeing red.
“And one of the reasons is party unity, so many people have said, party unity”. The campaign was making plans for a splashy Friday announcement aimed at dominating the weekend news cycle heading into the Republican convention.
Trump appeared to repeatedly digress from his prepared speech to go off on a characteristic conversational stream of consciousness, crowing about how he had predicted terror attacks in Europe and Britain’s vote to exit the European Union.
“His strength and his negotiating ability and his desire to do better is his most important position on trade”, Priebus said of Trump.
“Pence is a through-and-through conservative”, said Caleb Burns, a Republican strategist and partner in the Washington law firm Wiley Rein, adding Pence could “energize the workhorses of the party”. His selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as a running mate appears to be a lesson in what happens when he doesn’t. He reiterated that he would get tough with radical Islamic terrorism. As the video ends, the words on the screen read, “Donald Trump”. It revealed a candidate second-guessing himself over his decision and a campaign that doesn’t seem ready for prime-time.
Trump and Pence will both attend the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, which kicks off Monday.
Pence, who spent 12 years in Congress and until Friday was in a tough gubernatorial re-election bid, could also help Trump with critical fundraising, considering his general election campaign has roughly $1.3 million in the bank as of the last filing.
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Christie told Michigan’s Republican delegation in Ohio Monday that Mary Pat Christie asked the billionaire businessman for a donation and he responded, “How much does the check need to be?”
