Friday morning, Donald Trump made it official: Indiana governor Mike Pence will be his running mate.
I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate. News conference tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 15, 2016
They even have a brand new logo that is, well, a little bit 1990’s Tommy Hilfiger.
But the Trump team’s running mate roll-out was a bit of a bumpy one.
Even as Pence boarded a plane to New Jersey and sources inside the Trump campaign were leaking news of Pence’s acceptance to the press — likely in an effort to calm a heated Republican Rules Committee meeting torn apart by anti-Trump mutineers — Trump was still insisting to prime time news channel hosts that he hadn’t made a final decision.
Maybe that’s because Trump dealing with his own mutineers. Some of his staunchest allies were angry that they hadn’t been officially informed they were out of the running for Veep. According to NBC News, Trump was “irritated” with the leaks coming from his campaign, and got angrier as calls started coming in from the rejected choices.
According to one source, Gov. Chris Christie was so irked that he placed a “tense” phone call to Donald Trump around 4pm EST Thursday. The conversation reportedly got more and more testy as Trump tried to explain picking Pence, a staunch conservative from a Rust Belt swing state who was critical of the GOP’s nominee as late as Tuesday, over a man who literally fetched his lunch orders.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich was taking to the airwaves in a last-ditch bid to convince Trump, with a series of appearances criticizing America’s terror efforts and calling for the mass deportation of Muslims, that he was still his man. If Gingrich was hoping to tug at Trump’s heartstrings and become his last minute, dark-horse prom date, he was out of time. The decision had already been made.
Even Mike Pence was pretty confused: as of 8pm Thursday night, he had still not officially resigned from his re-election campaign. The Indiana Secretary of State only removed him from the ballot Friday morning.
Even Trump added to the confusion when he stepped on his own VP announcement by “emotionally” reacting to the terror attacks in Nice, France and postponing his Friday press conference. Reportedly, the nation’s foremost deal-maker was still trying to “get out” of announcing any Vice President as late as 1am Friday morning.
Scoop: @realDonaldTrump was so unsure about @mike_pence that around midnight last night he asked top aides if he could get out of it
— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) July 15, 2016
Regardless, the Republican ticket is now settled. It will, almost certainly, be confirmed next week during the official RNC nominating process. Trump and Pence will make their first joint appearance Saturday in New Jersey.
As if Trump’s manservant Chris Christie hasn’t suffered enough.
