MILWAUKEE– A challenger donald trumphaving just survived an assassination attemptenters the Republican National Convention without announcing his choice for vice president.
It is not yet clear whether the shooting Saturday, at his rally in Pennsylvania, changed the former president’s thinking about his potential second-in-command. But his choice now carries considerably more gravity. If a bullet had struck even slightly to the right, Trump would likely have been killed or seriously injured.
The difficult situation highlights the importance of a position that is one step away from the presidency. Trump has repeatedly stated that choosing someone qualified to take over as commander in chief was his top consideration for the job.
“You need someone who can be good, just in case, or horrible, just in case,” he said in an interview with “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” in May.
Hours before the shooting, in an interview before boarding his plane in Florida, he told Fox News Channel’s Harris Faulkner: “It’s a very important position, especially if something bad happens — that’s the most important thing.”
Those on Trump’s list have different levels of government experience. Ohio Senator JD Vance, for example, has been in office for less than two years, while North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum runs a state with a population (780,000 people) smaller than Columbus, Ohio (908,000). Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been in politics for decades and is in his third term in the Senate.
Before the shooting, Trump made it clear that he wanted to dramatically reveal his choice the Conventionwhich he said would make it more “interesting” and “exciting”.
“It’s like a highly sophisticated version of ‘The Apprentice,’” he joked in a radio interview last week, referring to the show he hosted, which showed him firing contestants on camera.
He could announce the choice on Monday. But he also raised the idea of waiting until the end of the week.
Trump and convention organizers said the RNC schedule will continue as planned despite the shooting, with Trump writing on his social media site that he could not “allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential killer, to force a change in the schedule, or anything else.”
“At this time, it is more important than ever that we stand together and show our true character as Americans by remaining strong and determined and not allowing evil to win,” he wrote.
He held meetings in the days before the shooting with leading candidates. All have sent material, including biographies and photographs, to convention organizers that could be used to prepare content if they are chosen, according to several people familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secretive process.
The private meetings with Vance, Rubio and Burgum were first reported by ABC News.
Nothing was offered during the meetings, one of the people said.
Trump waiting until the convention to pick a running mate is later than usual in recent cycles, but not unheard of.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan negotiated with former President Gerald Ford for hours during the Republican convention in Detroit, but settled on his former primary rival, George HW Bush, when those discussions broke down. Reagan came so close that his decision came less than 24 hours before he was to formally accept the Republican Party’s nomination.
Bush himself waited until the 1988 Republican convention in New Orleans before shocking many attendees – as well as some of the then-vice president’s top advisers – by choosing little-known Indiana Senator Dan Quayle to be his No. 2, rather than a more established running mate.
Since then, however, the tradition has been to choose a running mate shortly before the opening of the candidate’s party convention.
In 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, looking for a way to restart his race against Democrat Barack Obama, picked little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin just before the opening of the Republican convention in Minnesota. He had a jump in the polls that didn’t last.
Democrat Joe Biden picked then-California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate six days before his party opened its convention, which was held mostly virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. And Trump chose Indiana governor Mike Pence days before the opening of the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Will Weissert contributed to this report from Washington.
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