Meet the Trump-Vance Ticket

This episode discusses Donald Trump's selection of JD Vance as his vice-presidential running mate and explores their shared political strategies and backgrounds.

1. JD Vance, known for his combative political style, aligns closely with Trump's base, particularly on social issues and foreign policy.
2. Trump's recent legal victory regarding classified documents has significant implications for his political future.
3. The assassination attempt on Trump may rally his base but is unlikely to sway his detractors.
4. The selection of Vance as a running mate reflects a strategy focused on energizing the base rather than broadening electoral appeal.
5. The episode underscores the deep loyalty Trump commands within the Republican Party, now largely shaped around his persona.

1: The Announcement

JD Vance is declared Trump's running mate, focusing on their shared agenda and Vance's appeal to Trump's base. Key topics include immigration and foreign policy. JD Vance: "The real threat to American democracy is that American voters keep on voting for less immigration and our politicians keep on rewarding us with more."

2: Legal Victories

Discussion on Trump's court victory regarding classified documents and its implications for his campaign. Brad Milke: "What could have been the most damaging legal case against former President Trump just got thrown out of court."

3: The Assassination Attempt

Analyzes the impact of the assassination attempt on Trump's campaign and public perception. Brad Milke: "Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt."

1. Stay Informed: Regularly update yourself with news to understand shifts in political landscapes.
2. Critical Analysis: Analyze political events critically, focusing on underlying strategies and implications.
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5. Vote: Participate in elections to have a direct impact on political leadership.

President Trump appears in public for the first time since surviving an assassination attempt, after naming Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate. In a shocking decision, a federal judge dismisses the federal case against Trump for mishandling classified documents. And historian Allan Lichtman describes what assassination attempts mean for elections.

People

Donald J. Trump, JD Vance

Books

"Hillbilly Elegy" by JD Vance

Content Warnings:

None

Brad Milke
It's Tuesday, July 16, and the nominee finally has a running mate. We start here.

Former President Donald Trump kicks off the RNC by announcing his vice presidential pick.

JD Vance
I formally declare President Donald J. Trump and JD Vance as the republican nominees for president and vice president of the United States.

Brad Milke
Republicans say they want a message of unity. So how does Senator JG Vance shape the ticket? Meanwhile, Trump gets a shocking court victory.

Katherine Faulders
Being inside that courtroom multiple times, it's not totally surprising to me by a.

Brad Milke
Federal judge just threw out the case that some had called a slam dunk. And it's the question some have been nervous to ask, how will the assassination attempt affect the election?

Alan Lichtman
Violence and political violence is endemic to american history.

Brad Milke
Experts say the history books could offer a lesson.

From ABC News, this is start here. I'm Brad Milke.

The enduring image of this weekend, of course, will be the image of Donald Trump rising up from an assassination attempt, bloodied and tousled. He's just been clipped by a rifle's bullet, about to be hustled into a car. But immediately he remembers people are watching him, applauding for him, praying everything is okay. And it's in that moment, under a huge american flag, with a stream of blood across his face, that he raises his fist. If you watch his lips, he appears to be saying the same word over and over again. Fight. Fight.

Fight. That was Trump's first instinct. Defiance. Anger. Fight. Well, yesterday, as the Republican National Convention got underway in Milwaukee, Donald Trump walked into the arena. Please welcome Donald J. Trump.

His right ear was still bandaged. The crowd erupted in this outpouring of emotion. His family members had tears in their eyes, and even Trump himself, who's normally so in his element in this kind of environment, seemed, well, overwhelmed. No one had really seen him like this in public before. And the crowd started chanting, fight.

Across the board. This looked like a very choreographed event. The theme of the night was make America wealthy again. There were live bands and speeches.

Jonathan Karl
We are kicking off the biggest and best convention in the history of the Republican Party, and we are united.

Brad Milke
But as the day had begun, a basic question still hadn't been answered. Who was Donald Trump running with? Well, just before the convention kicked off, we got our answer.

JD Vance
I formally declare President Donald J. Trump and JD Vance as the republican nominees for president and vice president of the United States.

Brad Milke
President Trump decided to go with JD Vance from Ohio, who in his very short Senate career has developed a reputation for pugnaciousness, a willingness to battle on social issues like transgender care and abortion with an affinity for strong men like Hungary's Victor Orban. In other words, Trump picked as his running mate a fighter. Let's start today with ABC's chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, who is at the RNC in Milwaukee right now. Jon, first off, why JD Vance?

Jonathan Karl
Well, look, first of all, he's 39 years old. So if they win, he would actually be the second youngest vice president in american history. And Brad, I know you already know this, but the youngest was vice president Breckenridge, who was James Buchanan's vice president. That didn't really work out so well. But anyway, and then Breckenridge joined the confederacy. We don't need to get into all that. But look, the reason why he chose JD Vance is this is a guy that electrifies the MAGA base. He's entirely in sync with Trump on the issues.

JD Vance
The real threat to american democracy is that american voters keep on voting for less immigration and our politicians keep on rewarding us with more.

Jonathan Karl
He's, you know, not a really a Reagan Republican. He's a Trump Republican. He's into protectionism. He is a deep skeptic. Actually, that's not strong enough. He is entirely opposed to us support for Ukraine in the war against russian aggression.

JD Vance
At what point do we say the war is a stalemate? It's going to end in a negotiated settlement anyway. Let's stop wasting lives, let's stop wasting money, and let's get on with the peace.

Jonathan Karl
He is a MAGA Republican. And I ended up speaking to Trump yesterday and he explained he gets along with the guy great. He gets along with him great.

Quite enamored with the fact that Vance, who wrote hillbilly elegy bestselling book, but about growing up dirt poor, she'd tell.

JD Vance
Me, like a general giving his troops marching orders, there is nothing lower than the poor stealing from the poor and.

Jonathan Karl
What that was like and the deep challenges that he faced and he saw in his own kind of white working class community.

What Trump mentioned, though, was his sterling credentials, Yale Law School. He called him a first class intellect and liked the fact that not only is Vance a Yalie, but his wife went to Yale as well. Hes a Marine. I mean, hes got an impressive life story even at just age 39. But his emergence as a real figure in the Trump movement is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Brad Milke
Well, and thats the thing, John, because like you said, he really rose to prominence in so many circles, politically, literary circles, with this book about his hometown in Ohio and like white working class rural areas. And he felt like this kind of conduit to this part of the country. And yet he did not consider himself like a Trump supporter. At one point, he said, I can't stomach Trump. I think he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. I mean, what changed?

Jonathan Karl
Yeah, you know, he wrote hillbilly elegy before the 2016 election. It was a massive bestseller. And when Trump ends up winning, a lot of folks turn to JD Vance to try to explain the phenomenon, explain the support. As a matter of fact, ABC News on election night in 2016, after Trump was declared the winner, we actually called Vance, who happened to be at that point, living in Manhattan, and roused him out of bed. And he came into the studio at about, like, 02:00 in the morning, as we were, you know, broadcasting.

JD Vance
The feeling right now is euphoria and sort of vindication. So it's not gonna be easy for Donald Trump to totally lose his core base of support.

Jonathan Karl
At that point, though. He was a deep, deep, deep Trump skeptic.

JD Vance
I think, frankly, that's a big problem with Trump, is that he diagnoses the problems in a very successful, very passionate way. But I don't see him as offering many solutions.

Jonathan Karl
When I spoke to Trump yesterday, I asked him about that. I was like, you know, he said some, quite some things about you. And he said, yeah, but once he got to know me, he was all in. And this is something important about Trump. He, you know, can be quite thin skinned to criticism, obviously, and hit back very hard. But he loves a convert. And the harder you were against him, the more excited he is when you, you know, come on and are totally on board. And that's JD Vance.

Brad Milke
Vance was a fierce Trump critic, calling the then candidate cultural heroine. And even in one text message to a former roommate, he called Trump America's Hitler.

Jonathan Karl
I mean, he was harshly critical, but he is as all in as anybody, certainly anybody on his potential VP list or anybody in Congress. He is all in for Donald Trump.

Brad Milke
We've almost seen him kind of transform in real time as his political ambitions grew. Right. We saw him taking these much tougher right wing stances, whether it's on abortion or other social issues.

What does he. I mean, you already said what Trump sort of sees in him, but I'm just trying to figure out electorally. Often, you think of prototypical VP choices as like, they'll win me this state or they'll win me this type of voter. What does he bring that the average Trump likely voter wasn't already supporting?

Jonathan Karl
If Trump really wanted to move the needle. Electorally, he could have picked Youngkin of Virginia, and maybe that would have helped him win Virginia. Glenn Youngkins, a pretty popular republican governor, he could have picked Nikki Haley and tried to reach out to some of those, you know, maybe hit the gender gap a bit and reach out to Republicans who are skeptical. I don't think that's why he did this. Trump's expressed a view over and over again, pretty consistently that he doesn't think that a vice president really matters electorally. Although when I spoke to him yesterday about the Vance pick, I said, how are you going to use him in the campaign? His first answer was, I'm going to leave him in Pennsylvania. Obviously, incredibly important swing state, as you know, borders Ohio and has western Pennsylvania, looks a lot of the same demographics. And then he said, no, but I'm gonna use them all over the place. He'll spend a lot of time in Wisconsin. He can go a lot of places. A lot of places where people are hurting. That's what he said to me.

Brad Milke
The other thing, John, that happened at the convention, of course, was delegates formally dominated Trump. They ratified the GOP platform. I mean, as you are there experiencing this all firsthand, what does it all say about the Republican Party? And I guess what we're gonna see this week.

Jonathan Karl
Well, walking across the convention floor, I just kept on having this feeling, this is not really the Republican Party or it's not the Republican Party that I've been covering now for. I won't tell you how long, but this is the Trump party for the.

Brad Milke
Greatest president that's ever lived. And that's Donald J. Trump hereby declaring him the republican nominee for president of the United States of America.

Jonathan Karl
The convention is going to showcase, you see it in the Trump field family on the floor, and you see it with the intense loyalty to Trump. And after that assassination attempt, I mean, there's an emotional connection. I mean, there always was, but it's beyond anything that we saw before.

They adored this man. And I think, you know, he's the guy who told us years ago, famously, that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they would still support him. I think that. I think it's become a little broader. That might have been the hardcore supporters, but I think the republican party, as you see on display in this convention, is really the Trump party.

Brad Milke
Yeah. And like you said, a pivotal moment and a pivotal moment for, like, in the life of Donald Trump as well. It's so interesting that you reached out and that he picked up and talked to you.

Jonathan Karl
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause, you know, I had called him.

Why did this call happen? I mean, I had reached out to him after what happened in Pennsylvania, and I'd sent him a text message and I'd also left him a voicemail. I hadn't spoken to him in a while. And, you know, he called me back as we were sitting on the set waiting. We were about to go on air, sitting next to David Muir, and he seemed kind of really reflective. And he said to me, you know, Jonathan, you're a good guy. And then he realized what he was saying, and he said, he used to be a better guy, but you're a good guy.

Brad Milke
Not as good of a guy as before you were covering the White House. Probably might be what he means there. All right.

There at the convention in Milwaukee. Thank you so much. Really enlightening.

Jonathan Karl
Thank you, Brad.

Brad Milke
Next up on start here, what could have been the most damaging legal case against former President Trump just got thrown out of court. The surprise ruling after the break.

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Nate Silver
The political center of gravity is shifting to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week for the Republican National Convention. And the fiveth Politics podcast is going to be on the ground. To cover it, republicans will lay out their pitch to the nation for why they should get Americans votes. And it's happening amidst uncertainty over President Biden's position as the democratic nominee. And after months of scrutiny over former President Trump's legal challenges. We're going to sort through the noise and zoom in on what really matters using data and research as we go. And we'll have daily episodes from the convention. Search for 538 politics wherever you get your podcasts.

Brad Milke
We talked yesterday about how Trump and his most ardent supporters see him as more than just lucky. After all, in recent weeks, he narrowly survived an assassination attempt. He's been declared immune from criminal prosecution for certain acts as president by the Supreme Court. And despite his own dismal poll numbers, he has watched his political opponent flounder in a debate performance that has threatened to devour the democratic party. Some Trump loyalists have described an almost messianic quality at play here. Well, yesterday, Trump got even more good news. In a stunning court decision. The federal judge overseeing the case about Trump's handling of classified documents dismissed his case entirely, threw it out of court. She said the prosecutor isn't legally allowed to bring these charges in the first place and that this trial will not even begin. Remember, some had seen this as the most easily provable of all the cases pending against former President Trump. So let's check in with ABC senior reporter Katherine Faulders, who covers investigations and has been sitting in the courtroom throughout nearly all these proceedings. Katherine, what happened here?

Katherine Faulders
Well, look, this was a long shot effort by former President Trump and his lawyers. They essentially filed all these motions to dismiss, if you will. You know, there were, there were multiple of them. I was in the courthouse when the lawyers were arguing that this motion to dismiss. And at the time, Brad, the judge did not seem convinced on their arguments. They said, look, Jack's misappointment is unconstitutional. He wasn't appointed by Congress. We think he should be, and therefore, it's not a constitutional appointment and the whole indictment should be tossed out. And frankly, at the time, she didn't seem that convinced. We learned yesterday she literally threw out the whole entire indictment based on her finding that Jack's misappointment as a special counsel was unconstitutional. Now, what does this mean? Trump was facing 40 felony counts in Florida, arguably some of the most serious ones that he's facing from his handling classified material, some of the nation's most secret documents, if you will, and then, of course, obstructing, allegedly obstructing the government and getting those back. He wasn't returning them. He said that they were his. So the reality of this is this isn't going to go forward. Jack Smith could appeal it, but even if he did appeal it, it would take quite some time. We knew this wasn't going to go to trial, seem that way before the election. But again, if Trump wins the presidency, even if this is appealed by the special counsel, it doesn't matter.

Brad Milke
Wow.

Katherine Faulders
Trump will just close all of these federal investigations.

Brad Milke
Wait, so, and going back to the reasoning of the judge, because this is not her saying, hey, there's no, the government doesn't have a case here. She's saying there's a problem with Jack Smith himself. Like what? Like he's illegitimate somehow.

Katherine Faulders
Yeah. So this is the language that she uses. She says the framers gave Congress a pivotal role in the appointment of principal and inferior officer. That role cannot be usurped by the executive branch or diffused elsewhere. What does that mean, usurped by the executive branch? Jack Smith was, of course, appointed by the attorney general. Merrick Garland, the Department of justice. She's saying, look, I agree. This needs to be appointed by Congress. The special counsel needs to be appointed by Congress. That didn't happen here. And therefore, the special counsel's illegitimate. Essentially, the special counsel shouldn't exist.

Brad Milke
But I'm confused. Aren't all special counsels throughout all, we see lots of cases with special counsels. Aren't they all appointed by the attorney, attorney general, someone in that executive branch?

Katherine Faulders
So it got pretty wonky and complicated during the argument. So we would say, oh, is this the same, if you will, as like the Hunter Biden case, that was a special counsel. Well, they're arguing, David Weiss, who oversaw that investigation, he was a us attorney at the time. He was already in government. Jack Smith wasn't. He came from the outside. You remember Robert Mueller from years ago with Russia. He came from the outside, too. They would argue the same thing here. So they're arguing that these people who are coming from outside government into government, Congress should have some role in that. Now, what's fascinating with all of this is special counsels have been appointed on matters that are highly sensitive, as you know, such as Watergate. Remember, that was in the 1970s. All of these efforts that have occurred in the courts before to challenge the legitimacies of the special counsel, they haven't really been taken up by judges. So that's why this is so extraordinary here. It sets an extremely unusual precedent. I will say. I've sat in the courtroom for nearly all of Kannon's proceedings in this case. She's a favorable judge to Donald Trump. She was obviously appointed by Trump in 2020 to the federal bench. She had a particularly adversarial relationship with Jack Smith's prosecutors. And this doesn't. While it's a shocking decision from being there, from being inside that courtroom multiple times, it's not totally surprising to me.

Jonathan Karl
Wow.

Brad Milke
Which, I mean, in theory, then you'd imagine this could go so far beyond Trump. Although apparently Judge Cannon said this only applies to this case, might not apply to the January 6 case, for example. But, I mean, if there's a question as to whether special prosecutors can even be appointed from the outside like this, it's a huge deal for criminal justice. What is the reaction from people on either side of the Trump divide here?

Katherine Faulders
Well, look, legal experts, if you ask some legal experts, they're saying that this is shocking given that there was no precedent.

Brad Milke
Well, I think the decision is bogus. The judge seems to think that there was no statutory provision that allows the appointment of Jack Smith. That's just wrong.

Katherine Faulders
Now, you know that people close to Trump, they're saying, oh, good, this was the right decision. The judge made the right call.

JD Vance
Jack Smith has admitted that things were not as they should be with the boxes. It just raises very serious questions.

Katherine Faulders
But what I will tell you, even though Trump's lawyers obviously have argued all these motions to dismiss, they knew that the charges that Trump was facing there were really bad. The only way out of this was for Trump to win reelection or for the judge to just throw this out. So they certainly got what they wanted, a massive victory for them yesterday, Brad.

Brad Milke
And as you'd expect, the Trump team says they are pleased that they thought this should have been the case, although you could almost hear the surprise in some of their voices. The us government noted that this ruling has never been applied in any similar case. So you can imagine this will go to the appeals process. But like you said, that will take so long past this election. So this effectively puts the ball in voters hands as far as Trump facing trial over these classified documents. Katherine Valders. Thank you.

Katherine Faulders
Thank you.

Brad Milke
Okay, one more quick break. When we come back, Trump is just the third president, current or former, to be hit by a would be Assassin's bullet. What history says might happen next after the break.

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Brad Milke
And one last thing. In the aftermath of the attempt on Donald Trump's life, politics seemed very secondary. But at some point, as these last few days have gone on, I'm sure lots of us quietly wondered, now that Trump is okay, does any of this make him more or less likely to win re election in November? Well, last night, in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, President Biden was asked point blank whether this reshapes the race.

Jonathan Karl
Has this shooting changed the trajectory of this race?

I don't know, and you don't know either.

Brad Milke
And in this interview, we saw how the conversation has already evolved around Biden. For years, he's been warning about Donald Trump's violent rhetoric. Now he's being asked to defend his own words, like when he said on a recent donor call that Trump's actions should be in the bullseye.

Jonathan Karl
It was a mistake to use the word. I didn't say crosshairs. I mean bullseye. I mean, focus on him. Focus on what he's doing.

Focus on his policies.

Brad Milke
So with all this attention on each candidate, I wondered, how will this affect voters? Can history be our guide? After all, this is not the first time we've seen a gunmande aim for a president or a presidential candidate.

So I pose that question to Professor Alan Lichtman, a distinguished professor of history at American University who studies presidential elections.

Alan Lichtman
Violence and political violence is endemic to american history.

Brad Milke
He says an assassination attempt, any act of political violence, is always a kind of crisis moment for a nation. You think of the country finding itself in the wake of the civil war and how Abraham Lincoln could have led us through it. The assassination of Presidents Garfield and McKinley in 1880 and 1901 happened just months after beginning the respective terms. And yet, he says, none of these assassinations outwardly changed any future election results.

Alan Lichtman
They really haven't had a major effect on elections.

Brad Milke
Really? That's surprising to me.

Alan Lichtman
Yeah, it's surprising, but true.

Jonathan Karl
Just to repeat, once again, shots were fired. The president was not hit.

Alan Lichtman
Three people were. People say the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, you know, led to his landslide reelection in 1984. Untrue.

Jonathan Karl
This is from my exit poll. And the question asked, should Reagan run again?

And 40% of the people said yes, and 60% of the people said no.

Alan Lichtman
Even after the assassination, Ronald Reagan's approval rating was down in the gutter. The Republicans lost 25 US House seats in 1982. We'd like to have won everything, but we knew we weren't going to Reagan's approval rating only began to significantly improve when the economy began to significantly improve. This is a sad time for all people. JFK's assassination led to Lyndon Johnson, who won a landslide election in 1964, but that was not linked specifically to the assassination.

Brad Milke
In fact, he said, there are examples where the person shot has immediately lost their next election, including Theodore Roosevelt, who was shot, wait for it, in Milwaukee, where the RNC is happening this week.

Alan Lichtman
Theodore Roosevelt, a former president who was running as a third party candidate on the bull Moose ticket, did not lead to his election either. Rather, what happened after the attempted tr assassination was that Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, the sitting president, split the Republican vote and elected the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, at a time when the Republicans had really been riding high.

Brad Milke
In fact, that assassination attempt bears a lot in common with Trump's. Roosevelt was a former president trying to get back into office. By all accounts, this bullet should have killed him. But through what seemed at the time like divine intervention, he was saved when that bullet had to pass through a 50 page speech tucked into his breast pocket. Upon being shot, he defiantly addressed the crowd, saying, quote, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose. It's the 1912 equivalent to raising a clenched fist.

Jonathan Karl
We are looking at this video playing badlandhouse and you see Trump pumping his fists, cheering with the crowd.

Brad Milke
Lichtman says these events have all had galvanizing effects.

Alan Lichtman
Of course, an attempted assassination rallies the party around the person, but mainly for.

Brad Milke
People who already support the survivor, it doesn't bring your opponents around.

Alan Lichtman
The attempted assassination, which was actually pretty close of Gerald Ford by the former Madison family member, did not lead to General Ford winning the 1976 presidential election against Jimmy Carter.

Brad Milke
So what will become of Trump here? Well, it's unlikely that those vehemently opposed to him will suddenly find him tolerable. And if his supporters now see him as literally touched by an angel, well, their votes won't count extra. But some do speculate that as President Biden and others broadcast their condolences, their well wishes, their pleas for calm, that could all have the effect of subtly normalizing the man they spent years decrying as uniquely dangerous. That was the line that Biden was walking last night, denouncing political violence while still reserving the right to denounce Trump. Now, either way, dont expect any predictability from here on out. Professor Lichtman prides himself on forecasting presidential winners, including the last several cycles, and says, at this point, nothing is settled.

Alan Lichtman
Those who are giving you an instant analysis of the political implications of the Pennsylvania shooting. For those folks, I have a big bridge in my hometown of Brooklyn that I will sell them.

Brad Milke
And again, extensive coverage of RNC night two on ABC News Live and then on the tv network at 10:00 p.m. eastern. I'm Brad Milke. See you tomorrow. Camera.

Kayna Whitworth
I'm ABC News correspondent Kayna Whitworth. When doctor Sasha Reid was in school, one of her friends went missing, and that's when she became obsessed with keeping track of missing and murdered women and understanding what drives serial killers. Sasha gathered a team of all women to work outside the system and unravel one of the biggest murder cases in the history of North America. They investigate serial killer Robert Pickton from ABC audio and Freeform. Inside the midnight order is your chance to join doctor Sasha Reid and the midnight order.

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