Trump ‘Second Guessing’ J.D. Vance: Campaign ‘Chaos’ After Basing VP Pick on ‘Cockiness’ — as Dems’ Momentum Mounts With Kamala Harris
A campaign spokesman denied that Trump was “second-guessing” his VP pick.
July 23 2024, Published 10:47 a.m. ET
Donald Trump might already be second-guessing his vice presidential pick.
When Trump, 78, tapped freshman Ohio Senator and controversial Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, 39, as his running mate, the Republican nominee's campaign was riding a weeks-long high from Joe Biden's disastrous debate performance and anemic polling numbers.
But now that Biden, 81, is out and Kamala Harris, 59, is in, things are different, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
Trump's only chose J.D. Vance because he was so confident in his ability to defeat Biden.
Until this week, Trump's campaign had been laser-focused on hammering Biden's weaknesses and infirmities. It seemed to be working, and the GOP got confident – maybe too confident.
That confidence emboldened them to choose Vance, a selection that campaign officials acknowledged was intended to shore up support from the party die-hards and not appeal to undecided voters.
As The Atlantic writer Tim Alberta said on X: “Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance – a selection, they acknowledged, that was [born] of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.”
Vice President Kamala Harris assailed Donald Trump at her first campaign rally since replacing President Joe Biden, comparing her background as a former prosecutor to his record as a convicted felon.
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Trump was betting on his ability to beat Biden, and despite the increasing calls from high-profile Democrats for Biden to step aside in the wake of the debate, GOP strategists didn't think he would actually do it.
But on Sunday, the president did the unthinkable by announcing that he was dropping out of the race for the White House and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in his place.
Although she's not yet the party's official nominee, support has quickly solidified behind Harris. The momentum shifted, with Democrats suddenly pulling in a $50 million avalanche of donations while Republicans were left scrambling to rethink their approach.
Trump's campaign has reportedly begun developing a new three-point game plan to take on Harris.
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Trump himself was fuming over Biden's departure. He took to Truth Social to cry fraud, writing: “So we are forced to spend time and money fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after a terrible debate and quits the race. Now we have to start all over again. Shouldn’t the Republican Party be reimbursed for fraud?”
Republicans have already begun focusing all of their attention on Harris and developing a new three-point game plan to beat the Dems in November.
They intend to tie Harris to the flaws of the Biden administration, claim that Harris was part of a massive cover-up to deceive voters by hiding Biden's declining health and cognitive ability from the American public, and turn the left's rhetoric about “saving democracy” against them by arguing that forcing Biden out of the race after the primary was “undemocratic”.
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