As Donald Trump’s top campaign aides began a discussion in June 2016 about who the presumptive Republican presidential nominee should select as his running mate, the candidate piped up with an idea.
“I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?”
Trump asked the assembled group, according to a new book by his former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates set to be published Oct. 13.
Trump added: “She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!” In Gates’s telling, Trump’s suggestion of naming to the ticket his then-34-year-old daughter — a fashion and real estate executive who had never held elected office — was no passing fancy.
Instead, he brought up the idea repeatedly over the following weeks, trying to sell his campaign staff on the idea, insisting she would be embraced by the Republican base, Gates writes.
Trump was so taken with the concept of his eldest daughter as his vice president — and so cool to other options, including his eventual selection, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence — that his team polled the idea twice, according to Gates.
It was Ivanka Trump who finally ended the conversation, Gates writes, going to her father to tell him it wasn’t a good idea. Trump eventually came around and selected Pence, after the governor won him over by delivering a “vicious and extended monologue” about Bill and Hillary Clinton at a get-to-know-you breakfast later that summer, according to Gates’s account. “
This is not true and there was never any such poll,” Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, said Monday.
In an interview last week, Gates said he is not certain Trump would actually have gone through with making his daughter his running mate. But he said he included the anecdote in his new book, first reported by Bloomberg News, as a prime example of the kind of unconventional thinking he believes made Trump an appealing candidate.
While others might see the episode as a distasteful symbol of Trump’s nepotism, Gates said it shows Trump’s commitment to family, loyalty and ensuring those around him support his agenda and not their own — “the values and assets that Trump cared most about,” he said.
The account in Gates’s book — “Wicked Game: An Insider’s Story on How Trump Won, Mueller Failed, and America Lost” — is one of several that he cites in praise of his former boss as he describes working on the campaign and ultimately becoming ensnared in the special counsel investigation that consumed much of Trump’s presidency.
Unlike a number of other memoirs by former Trump staffers, Gates’s book serves not as a tell-all, but rather a defense of the president and how he and others helped elect him. In an interview, Gates said he believes Trump has been a good president — “the most decisive president we’ve had probably since Eisenhower” — and says he supports his reelection. After working on the 2016 campaign and helping organize the inauguration, Gates pleaded guilty in February 2018 to conspiracy against the United States and lying to federal investigators in relation to lobbying work he and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort had done in Ukraine before joining Trump’s team.
A book I wont be buying.
Way too many good ones we’ll never get to! Slaying Goliath is now third in my queue.
But Ivanka is the VP people its all behind the scenes people don’t know that?
There’s no way that would be allowed. 😐
People might love Ivanka (big if), but most don’t love Ugh! 😐☹️✔️🔔
God knows what else he fancied having Ivanka as . . .
I recall him saying that if she weren’t his daughter, he would go after her.
Disgusting man.
Disgusting man with disgusting offsprings.
I heard a great one on the golf course today (one of those rare times I encountered a like-minded person on the course): For [the Idiot], incest is just another minor obstacle.
Opera Lady to Groucho: I think Trump is a gift from God!
Groucho to Opera Lady: Why? Did he run out of locusts?
quote: “Trump’s commitment to family, loyalty….” What?!! Ha, ha, ha, this stooge should talk to Trump’s niece and then talk about family treachery and back-stabbing of family by Trump. Trump has a commitment and loyalty to himself, first and foremost.
I had nabbed the same section of this report. It is absurd to claim Trump has any loyalty to anyone.
Gates is delusional if “he believes Trump has been a good president — “the most decisive president we’ve had probably since Eisenhower” — and says he supports his reelection.
Thus guy is less trustworthy than Michael Cohen, Trump’s fixer.
Which of his three wives is he loyal to? Melania was home with a new baby when he cheated on her.
Ugh! isn’t loyal to anyone. Ivana and Marla don’t and won’t discuss Ugh! 😐
I do not care what anyone says. There are only two reasons Trump won the Electoral College and the election.
FIRST: The Russian meddling focused on black voters in battleground states with a lying propaganda campaign that succeded. The black vote had been increasing steadily for twenty years but dropped by more than 700,000 votes in 2016. If those black voters had turned out, Trump would have lost several of the battleground states and lost the Electoral College, too.
“How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/01/how-russia-helped-to-swing-the-election-for-trump
SECOND: the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and Comey’s surprise last-minute public announcement days before the election that the FBI was reopening the investigation after the first round found nothing illegal. The 2nd round found nothing illegal, too, but by the time that was announced, it was too late.
“The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/
We Blacks have been loyal Democrats, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945). 😁
We didn’t suddenly not vote, because Russia said “Hey Black people, sit this election out. Thank you.” 😐
If Russia did indeed hack, where was the Obama Administration? Surely, Obama wanted Hillary to win. 😐
And who are these electors of the Electoral College? I never met any. They’re (s)elected Ugh!, not me. 😐
Eddie, re: “If Russia did indeed hack, where was the Obama Administration? Surely, Obama wanted Hillary to win.” Here’s some background on what Obama admin knew & did, & speculations as to whether they could have done more: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/15/629281975/fact-check-did-the-obama-administration-respond-to-election-interference-by-russ There’s also this from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/us/politics/jeh-johnson-testimony-russian-election-hacking.html
So, nutshelled: Obama concluded that any public announcement at that point would look like he was trying to influence the election, particularly in view of Trump’s predicting the election would be rigged in some way [sound familiar?] But he was doing a lot behind the scenes. Those who think he could have done more are just second-guessing after the fact.
Of more concern to me is how it could have happened that Comey announced a re-investigation of Hillary’s emails just a week before the election (based on uncovering Wiener’s wife’s emails), only to conclude a few days after the election that there was nothing new there. [Those emails were either personal or had already been checked out in the original investigation.] That arguably had more influence on the outcome than anything russkies did online. Sadly I suspect Obama was just following norms/ rules of power separation as usual. Before the advent of Trump, a prez quashing a DOJ investigation was not a thing. And besides, who could ever have predicted that Comey would defy secrecy norms & all advice from his dept & publicly announce such a thing just before election—all cuz he found himself in a tight place. Another guy putting self before country.
Thank you, bethree5. 🙂
Hillary won the popular vote. It seems Benghazi, emails and scandals with Bill reality had no effect on her. 😐
It really doesn’t matter what Obama did or knew, because he always be defended by someone or something. I think, his administration could have done something, but it doesn’t really matter what I think. 😐
More importantly, it seems “nobody” is focusing on the electors (we elect) who (s)elected Ugh! ☹️
Sounds typical. Back then Trump was still living in his reality-show bubble where he thought the American voting public [138million in 2016] = viewers of the Apprentice [21 million in their biggest season].