Among the more tepid rebukes, Pence called Trump’s commentary “inappropriate,” then added, “But that being said, if I wanted to comment on everything that’s said in the presidential campaigns, I would have run for president. I’m focused on the state of Indiana.” (Incidentally, Judge Curiel had been born, raised, and educated in Indiana.)
Pence was wise to tread carefully. Any slight of Trump, real or perceived, could mean the difference between running mate and historical footnote. Two other VP finalists, former Speaker Newt Gingrich and Tennessee senator Bob Corker, had rebuked Trump for his Curiel comments. But a fourth candidate, Chris Christie, had distinguished himself from the field.
“People are always gonna express their opinions,” the New Jersey governor said in response to the uproar.13 “Those are Donald’s opinions and he has the right to express them.”
THE “SHORT LIST” OF POTENTIAL TICKET MATES GOT SHORTER IN A hurry, thanks to a revamped campaign operation manning the controls inside Trump Tower.
On June 20, at last hearing the pleas of his adult children, Trump fired his campaign manager. Corey Lewandowski had been a disruptive presence for good and for ill, encouraging Trump’s primal political instincts but never refining them. Replacing him atop the campaign was Paul Manafort, the veteran scoundrel who’d sworn to friends that he was joining Trump’s team solely to oversee the convention mechanics.
The following week, Trump tapped a new communications director, Jason Miller. It made for an interesting interview: Miller had spent the past sixteen months helming Cruz’s messaging machine and was responsible for a flurry of brutally negative tweets directed at the GOP front-runner. Trump worried about the operative’s allegiance. In a conference room on the twenty-fifth floor of Trump Tower, the presumptive nominee squinted at Miller with a mischievous sneer.
“You just came over from Cruz? I guess you want to join the winning team, right?” Trump said. “Ted is a little nasty. Sometimes he’s nice.”
Miller didn’t speak.
“Let’s see where your loyalties lie,” Trump continued. “Tell me something negative about Ted. Give me some dirt.”
“I can’t do that,” Miller replied.
“No?” Trump said. “C’mon. You have to give me something.”
Miller still refused. After two more rounds of this, Trump abruptly turned angry. “Okay, I’m not fucking around anymore,” he told Miller. “Give me something on Cruz or you’re outta here.”
The room went silent. The assembled cast—Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who had extended the job offer to Miller—wore concerned looks. Miller sat speechless, expecting to see security coming for him at any moment.
Then Trump broke into a grin. “Right answer!” he cried, pounding the table. “Jared, did you coach him?” (If this smacked of a mafioso scene, it wasn’t coincidental: Trump had learned at the knee of legendary New York City fixer Roy Cohn, who was famous not just as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s general counsel but as consigliere to some of America’s biggest mobsters.)
Finally, a few days later, Trump hired Conway, the veteran pollster who had been waging a stealth lobbying campaign on behalf of her longtime client, Pence. As it happened, Trump and Conway were already well acquainted; she had polled on his behalf in 2011, when he was flirting with a 2012 presidential run. They were a natural pairing: Conway had spent her career pushing the party establishment to ditch its concerns about “electability” and embrace outsider candidates who could reach new voters. In this sense, although he’d defeated her preferred candidate in Cruz, Trump’s vanquishing of the GOP was the realization of her life’s work.
“The Republican Party was always looking for the next Ronald Reagan, but it kept picking Bushes,” Conway says.
Trump reveled in such assessments, feeling disrespected even after spanking a sprawling field of sixteen well-regarded Republican opponents. That summer, as he neared a decision on his running mate, he agreed to meet with a small group of GOP-friendly corporate kingpins. They represented a range of industries, from banking to energy, and were convened by Jeff Sessions for a private get-to-know-you at Trump’s new hotel in Washington, DC.
The property, once home to the historic Old Post Office, was still under construction, and laborers in hard hats milled about as the conversation commenced. After the Republican heavyweights introduced themselves, and Trump broke the ice by grilling an automotive executive about the productivity of Mexican workers, he surveyed his audience with a question: How many of them had supported him during the primary?
Nobody raised their hand. The men looked around nervously. Trump, leering in a way that implied some combination of delight and disgust, went around one by one, demanding to know whom they had voted for and why. Most of the attendees said Jeb Bush, out of loyalty to the family; a handful said Marco Rubio, believing he was best equipped to beat Hillary Clinton.
A long silence hung in the air. “Well,” Trump finally told them. “At least none of you supported Lyin’ Ted Cruz.”
AT THE URGING OF HIS NEW AND PROFESSIONALIZED CAMPAIGN STAFF, Trump began weeding out the field of prospective running mates.
He had floated the idea of “America’s mayor,” Rudy Giuliani, giving the Republican ticket a pair of tough-talking New Yorkers. But Rudy was, among other things, pro-choice, a nonstarter with the already wary evangelical community. He was out.
Trump saw similar benefit in selecting Christie. The New Jersey governor would reinforce his strengths—brassy, unflinching, in-your-face leadership—while adding valuable executive experience. But Trump didn’t need reinforcement; he needed balance. Moreover, the “Bridgegate” scandal had blown up back home, plunging Christie’s approval ratings to all-time lows.14 (“Why not save Christie for attorney general?” Manafort asked Trump. “Because,” Trump replied, “that guy would prosecute my own kids and not think twice about it.”) Christie was out.
Seeking a wild-card option, Trump began whispering to allies that he was high on a retired Army lieutenant general, Michael Flynn. Trump had made a habit of mocking the efficacy of the U.S. armed forces, even going so far as to say, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do.” Yet beneath the bluster, Trump, having attended a military school, was enamored of the institution. He believed the military embodied a toughness that was fast diminishing in American society. He loved the imagery of a soldier on the ticket with a businessman, a tandem of unbeholden outsiders taking Washington by storm.
Except that Flynn wasn’t unbeholden. After feuding with Obama administration officials and being forced into early retirement in 2014, Flynn launched a consulting firm that soon won contracts with companies linked to the Russian government. Taking a cursory glance at the general’s workload since joining the private sector, Trump’s lawyers warned that Flynn’s ties to the Kremlin would be deadly for a campaign already accused of being pro-Putin. Flynn was out.
By the Fourth of July, it was apparent that Trump had only three choices: Pence, Gingrich, and Corker. Then, a day later, Corker withdrew from consideration.
The Tennessee senator, a mannerly southerner and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had been circumspect about Trump since their first meeting back in May. Arriving at the candidate’s skyscraper, Corker, he later told friends, thought the entire spectacle odd: the characters milling around, the corded rope guarding Trump’s magazine covers like priceless artifacts, the candidate’s insistence on sitting behind his desk for their entire conversation, a gesture that Corker found uncouth.