MSNBC's John Heilemann gives alarming reason why Trump chose J.D. Vance as running mate
July 22, 2024
Donald Trump's calculus for choosing J.D. Vance as his running mate might already be outdated, according to MSNBC's John Heilemann.
The former president has been banking on a rematch with President Joe Biden, who dropped his own re-election campaign Sunday over widespread concerns about his age. And the political analyst told "Morning Joe" that Trump might already regret doubling down on MAGA extremism as Vice President Kamala Harris emerges as the likely Democratic nominee.
"Your core conviction is this race is going to be close," Heilemann said. "Donald Trump and his team's core conviction is it is not going to be close. They came into the convention, and for a long time, Donald Trump was thinking a much safer caretaker kind of pick [for running mate]. That's why Doug Burgum was in the race, Marco Rubio, people who were very safe.
"By the time they got – he made his decision at the last minute, from all the reporting we can tell, started to shift toward the notion of a legacy pick in the last month or so before the Republican convention, but he finally made his decision after the assassination attempt. By that time, within the Trump campaign, there is a view they're headed for a landslide. They thought that before the debate, they thought Donald Trump was on his way to winning 320 electoral votes. This is what they told Tim Alberta before the debate.
"After the debate and assassination attempt, I sat in a room with Tony Fabrizio in Milwaukee, the Trump pollster. He said [they] stopped counting the paths we have to 270 electoral votes when [they] got to 25. They are thinking, convinced they'll win 330 electoral votes, a landslide."
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"I'm not saying that's correct, but if you believe that, you don't care about — you're making your vice presidential pick not on the basis of a close race but on the basis of we're about to change American politics," Heilemann added.
"I'm going to put someone who I think will be the heir to MAGA. That is what the calculation was, I think, and, yes, it was the total doubling down pick, not a pick for a close race."
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