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Trump reveals whether he has any regrets picking JD Vance as his running mate now his opponent is Kamala Harris instead of Biden... amid claims he made a mistake
The Trump campaign has been forced to rethink its strategies after Joe Biden turned the race upside down on Sunday, but Donald Trump said he does not regret one key decision.
Sen. J.D. Vance is best pick for vice president he told reporters on a briefing call on Tuesday.
His seal of approval came amid warnings that Vance, a MAGA loyalist from an already Trump-voting state, may no longer offer him the best chances of success against a female opponent who may now try to pick a running mate that can deliver key states or demographic groups.
But Trump brushed off questions about whether he would have gone in a different direction if he knew Harris would be his eventual opponent.
'I'd do the same thing and he's doing really well,' he said. 'He's really kind of caught on.'
Donald Trump said he would have picked J.D. Vance as his running mate even if he had known that Kamala Harris would be his opponent in November's election
The former president announced the former Marine and bestselling author as his running mate last Monday as the Republican National Convention began.
Vance introduced him at their first rally together on Saturday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He was the favorite for the role after impressing Trump with his appearances on Fox News and becoming close to his son Don Jr.
Trump had repeatedly said he did not need a V.P. pick to help him win states.
That was before the race was upended on Sunday by Biden's announcement that he would no longer be seeking reelection.
Trump now is all but certain to face Harris in November, leading to questions about whether his all-male ticket would struggle to keep hold of female voters in key battlegrounds.
'Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,' Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta posted on X.
Several political scientists offered similar analysis.
Trump now is almost certain to face Vice President Kamala Harris in the election after President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he was standing aside
Thomas Gift, director of University College London's Center on US Politics, told Business Insider that the selection may have been a sign of overconfidence.
'Doubling down on mobilizing the MAGA base for a candidate who already has the base eating out of the palm of his hand never seemed like the best tactical play,' he said.
Since the change of candidate, Trump and his allies have gone on the offensive against Harris, tying her to the immigration and inflation problems the bedeviled the Biden administration.
'She's the same as Biden, but much more radical. She's a radical left person ,' said Trump.
'This country doesn't want a radical left person to destroy it. She's far more radical than he is. She wants open borders. She wants things that nobody wants.'
Harris, Trump told reporters, held no fears for him after her disastrous campaign for president in 2020 ended almost as soon as it had begun.
'So if she campaigns that way now and this is only going to be tougher, although she does have a lot of support from the fake news. There's no question about that,' he said.
'But if she campaigns the way she campaigned then, you know, I suspect she won't be too tough.'