By Rob Crilly, US Chief Political Correspondent for Dailymail.com in Washington, DC
22:17 23 Jul 2024, updated 22:17 23 Jul 2024
- Donald Trump spoke to reporters on Tuesday and stepped up attacks on Harris
- READ MORE: Follow all the latest developments in our live politics blog
The Trump campaign was forced to rethink its strategies after Joe Biden upended the race on Sunday, but Donald Trump said he has no regrets about a key decision.
Sen. JD Vance is the top choice for vice president, he told reporters at a news conference Tuesday.
Her seal of approval came amid warnings that Vance, a MAGA loyalist from a state that already voted for Trump, may no longer offer her the best chance of success against a female opponent who may now try to pick a running mate who can win in key states or demographics.
But Trump ignored questions about whether he would have taken a different direction had he known Harris would be his eventual opponent.
“I would do the same thing and he is doing very well,” he said. “He has understood very well.”
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The former president announced the former Marine and best-selling author as his running mate last Monday as the Republican National Convention kicked off.
Vance introduced him at their first rally together on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He was the favorite for the role after impressing Trump with his appearances on Fox News and becoming close to his son Don Jr.
Trump had repeatedly said he did not need a vice president to help him win states.
That was before the race was upended Sunday by Biden’s announcement that he would no longer seek reelection.
Trump is now virtually certain to face Harris in November, raising questions about whether his all-male ticket would struggle to maintain support among female voters in key battlegrounds.
“The most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was doubt about J.D. Vance, a pick they acknowledged was born of hubris, aimed at increasing margins with the base in a landslide victory rather than persuading undecided voters in a close election,” The Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta wrote in X.
Several political scientists offered a similar analysis.
Thomas Gift, director of the Center for American Policy at University College London, told Business Insider that the selection may have been a sign of overconfidence.
“Doubling down on efforts to mobilize the MAGA base for a candidate who already has that base eating out of the palm of his hand never seemed like the best tactical move,” he said.
Since the change of candidate, Trump and his allies have gone on the offensive against Harris, linking her to the immigration and inflation problems plaguing the Biden administration.
“He’s just like Biden, but much more radical. He’s a radical leftist person,” Trump said.
“This country doesn’t want a radical leftist person destroying it. She’s much more radical than he is. She wants open borders. She wants things that nobody else wants.”
Harris, Trump told reporters, had no fear for him after his disastrous 2020 campaign for the presidency ended almost as soon as it had begun.
“If she campaigns like that now, it’s only going to be harder, even though she has a lot of support from the fake news community. There’s no doubt about that,” he said.
“But if she campaigns like she did then, you know, I suspect she won’t be too tough.”
