Timeline for Donald Trump’s announcement running mate of the vice president Sources familiar with the debate told NBC News that the president took a break after Joe Biden’s underwhelming debate performance last week.
Former president last week he wondered whether to rush into an announcement either to distract Biden before the first debate in Atlanta or to quickly change the narrative, the debate went badly for Trump.
But it was Biden who had a bad night, Alarm bells are ringing among Democrats with his raspy and halting delivery, slack-jawed facial expressions, and occasional invisible train of thought. The next cycle of political news – and it was still going on monday with speculation About the viability of Biden’s candidacy — not something Trump wants to immediately erase by introducing his running mate.
“What’s the old saying? Never stand in the enemy’s way when he is destroying himself,” said a Republican familiar with the discussions. “I think it belongs here. It’s been Biden’s week for all the wrong reasons; let them keep it.”
Trump has said he knows who his running mate will be, sources close to the process continue to describe the search was narrowed down to three finalists: Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator JD Vance of Ohio.
The window for decision and announcement is narrowing. There is Trump made public He prefers to announce his choice on or near the Republican National Convention, which begins on July 15 in Milwaukee. Previous high-level discussions of the submission focused on his sentencing next week, July 11, on 34 felony counts of falsifying employment records.
It’s unclear whether an announcement is off the table this week — given Trump’s love of theatrics, a surprise announcement could come at any moment. But a prominent Republican fundraiser said there was no point in Trump making a pre-sentence statement at this point. Regardless of the outcome of the Biden debate, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday That Trump has immunity for some of his conduct as president in the federal election meddling case.
“If the talks had gone badly, I think we would have known,” the fundraiser said. “But I don’t know why you’re doing this in the middle of all this when there’s so much turmoil going on.”
A veteran GOP operative familiar with the exit talks agreed.
“There’s so much up in the air that there’s no reason for them to move quickly after what happened in Atlanta,” the operative said. “There could be another one nominated by the Democrats — how does that potentially change things? Waiting now makes all the sense in the world.”
Although senior adviser Chris LaCivita, Trump’s closest aides offered few clear readings of the process and timeline. acknowledged on social media He said last week that an announcement could come anytime between then and the convention.
“As President Trump himself has said, the primary criterion for selecting a vice president is a strong leader who will be a great President for eight years after the end of the next four-year term,” Brian Hughes, Trump’s senior adviser, said in a proposed written statement. for this article – and almost every report written about the search for a working companion in recent weeks. “But anyone who tells you they know who or when President Trump will pick for vice president is lying, unless that person’s name is Donald J. Trump.”
The former senior adviser, who is close to Trump and has discussed the search with him, felt comfortable making a more assertive observation.
“If Biden hadn’t bombed this debate, we would have known by now who Trump’s VP pick was,” the former adviser said.