Donald J. Trump has not named a running mate this week. He appears eager to avoid stepping on the controversy swirling around President Biden in the debate’s aftermath.
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Former President Donald J. Trump at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Va., the day after the debate last week.
President Biden’s disastrous debate performance has persuaded former President Donald J. Trump to continue to hold off on naming his running mate for now, prompting another round of speculation — including within his own team — about when he may announce his pick.
His decision to cede the spotlight to a rival, even temporarily, is a seldom-seen strategy from the attention-driven former president, who has spent a lifetime bending news coverage to his benefit in real estate, on reality television and in national politics.
There was no concrete plan for the former president to announce his pick either last week or this week. But Mr. Biden’s fumbling performance left Mr. Trump in the aftermath with little choice but to further linger over his decision, according to two people familiar with the former president’s thinking. Naming a running mate now would risk stepping on the controversy swirling around his opponent, which has included calls from within the Democratic Party and from liberal news media figures for Mr. Biden to step aside.
Immediately after the debate, Mr. Trump’s campaign representatives were effectively ignored in Atlanta by reporters, who were more focused on drawing explanations from Mr. Biden’s team. By midmorning the next day, when the Trump campaign has typically fielded a couple dozen media requests (and far more after debates in 2016 and 2020), there was only a handful of inquiries from news reporters.
This week, the Fourth of July holiday factors into Mr. Trump’s decision about when to unveil his pick in order to maximize the political — and financial — upswing.
As some on the Trump team see it, an announcement this holiday week risks blunting positive news coverage of the pick as many Americans, including some of television’s top news anchors, are on vacation. The former president has, in the past, judged the impact of an announcement based in part on the renown of the television anchor reporting the news.
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Source: nytimes.com
