Trump’s confidence play

Decoding the J.D. Vance pick.

Donald Trump, with his ear bandaged, shakes J.D. Vance’s hand at the Republican convention. (C-SPAN screengrab)

Donald Trump has had a run of good luck lately.

First, his opponent imploded in a national televised debate. Then, he miraculously dodged a would-be assassin’s bullet. Finally, on Monday, one of his four criminal indictments — the one widely considered to be the most legally damning, at that — was dismissed by a federal judge.

Perhaps that lucky streak is why he felt emboldened enough to pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate on Monday.

Alone among Trump’s VP finalists, Vance doesn’t really help Trump with any discernible demographic group. Tim Scott or Ben Carson might have helped Trump with the Black vote; Marco Rubio might have shored up support among Hispanics. Elise Stefanik or Nancy Mace could have helped appeal to suburban women, while Glenn Youngkin could have reached out to moderates. Doug Burgum, favored by Rupert Murdoch and friends, might not have have brought the ticket votes so much as he would have brought it money — he could have been Trump’s conduit to the billionaire class.

Trump’s decision to pick Vance, the 39-year-old bestselling author-turned-MAGA firebrand, is a signal that he doesn’t feel a need to cater to any of those groups and make a special play for their votes or their dollars. In 2016, Trump picked Mike Pence as a way to bridge the divides of a fractured GOP, ensuring support from evangelicals. Eight years later, all factions of the party are fully united behind Trump, as evidenced by evangelical activists’ decision to drop a planned floor fight over Trump’s new platform, which significantly moderates the party’s traditional stance on abortion. The party now makes concessions to him, not vice versa.

But the selection isn’t just about Trump’s relationship with the GOP. Currently boasting a consistent lead in general election polling for the first time in his political career, Trump plainly feels like he’s going to win against Biden as well — and so he wants to do it his way, doubling down on populism instead of offering an olive branch to independents. Vance is someone you only pick in July if you’re feeling confident about November.

Of Trump’s potential running mates, Vance was always regarded as the contender closest to him ideologically. That’s ironic, of course, because when Vance first arrived on the national stage, he was far from a Trump disciple.

The future senator initially achieved fame with his 2016 bestseller, “Hillbilly Elegy,” which traced his journey from impoverished Appalachian upbringing to the Marine Cops and eventually Yale Law School. At the time, the book was seen as a decoder ring for understanding the white working-class frustrations that helped fuel Trump’s political rise — but Vance himself was a consistent Trump critic, calling Trump “cultural heroin” in The Atlantic and “America’s Hitler” in a private text message.

Over the course of Trump’s presidency, Vance’s political commentary slowly grew more populist; by the time he waged his first run for elected office, seeking Ohio’s open Senate seat in 2022, he did so with Trump’s endorsement. “I was certainly skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016, but President Trump was a great president and he changed my mind,” Vance said in a Fox News interview last night. “I think he changed the minds of a lot of Americans.”

Between now and the election, per Axios, the Trump campaign “plans to park Vance in Pennsylvania,” with “side trips to Michigan and Wisconsin,” using his Rust Belt roots in an attempt to once again break down the Blue Wall.

After November — win or lose — Vance will quickly begin his second act as the heir of Trump’s Republican Party. Uniquely, since Trump would be a term-limited president, if the GOP ticket triumphs this year, Vance would enter the White House on Day 1 as the frontrunner for the party’s nomination in four, not eight, years.

Elevating Vance means a very different future for the GOP than if Trump had picked Rubio or Burgum, both of whom might have reverted the party to a much more traditional Republican mold. With Vance, the GOP will be poised to continue moving in a Trumpian direction, even with Trump off the stage, cementing his legacy.

This is true both in terms of foreign policy, where Vance has expanded on Trump’s nationalism as a senator, and domestic policy, where the Ohioan has turned economic populism into legislation.

In the former arena, Vance has been one of the Senate’s leading opponents of Ukraine aid. “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other,” he said as a Senate candidate in 2022; after joining the chamber, he helped lead the GOP opposition to aid packages for Kyiv.

Vance’s work on economic policy has led him to a string of partnerships with progressive Democrats. Busting Republican orthodoxies, he has sponsored bills targeting bank executives with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), bolstering railroad regulations with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and fostering competition in the credit card industry with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). In a recent New York Times interview, Vance said the “the people on the left…whose politics I’m open to” are Bernie Sanders supporters.

He’s clashed with Wall Street firms, while supporting antitrust regulations and unions, visiting a UAW picket line last year; he even told the Times that he’s “not philosophically against raising taxes,” a far cry from previous Republican iterations. As Semafor reported, many GOP-leaning CEOs are horrified at the pick.

But, most importantly, there’s no indication that the Vance pick will lead any of those business leaders to pull their support from Trump. And suddenly, the logic of the choice snaps into view. Vance might not help Trump with any one group, but when none of your decisions in this election cycle have brought you any concrete blowback — why not swing for the fences?

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More news to know

» With a bandage covering his ear, Trump made a dramatic entrance at the Republican convention last night. Watch here

» Trump also spoke on the phone yesterday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., attempting to win the Independent candidate’s endorsement. Trump echoed Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism in the call, which leaked — listen here.

» Read more about Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to dismiss Trump’s classified documents case. Cannon, citing a recent concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas, ruled that special counsels violate the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

» In a combative interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, President Biden criticized the media but acknowledged that calling to put Trump in a “bullseye” was a “mistake.” Asked if he had spoken to former President Barack Obama since the debate, Biden said: “I may have. I don’t think so.” Watch here.

» Wow, via CBS News:

There were three snipers stationed inside the building the shooter used during Saturday's shooting of former President Donald Trump, a local law enforcement officer with direct knowledge of the incident tells CBS News.

…One of the snipers inside saw Thomas Matthew Crooks outside and looking up at the roof, observing the building and disappearing, a local law enforcement officer tells CBS News.

Crooks came back, sat down and looked at his phone. At that point, one of the snipers took a picture of him. Crooks took out a rangefinder and the sniper radioed to the command post. Crooks disappeared again and then came back a third time with a backpack. The snipers called in with information that he had a backpack and said he was walking towards the back of the building.

Officers believe that Crooks might have used an air conditioning unit to get on top of the roof.

By the time other officers came for backup, he had climbed on top of the building and was positioned above and behind the snipers inside the building, the officer said.

Two other officers who heard the sniper's call tried to get onto the roof. State police started rushing to the scene, but by that time, a Secret Service sniper had already killed Crooks, the officer said.