MILWAUKEE — With the clock ticking to the Republican National Convention last week, Donald Trump met privately to discuss his running mate search with two of his closest advisers: his sons.
The conversation quickly turned tense when the former president indicated that he was leaning toward Doug Burgum, until recently the largely unknown governor of North Dakota — but someone whose low-maintenance, no-drama personality would never threaten to outshine Trump.
That’s when Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump chimed in.
“Don Jr. and Eric went bats--- crazy: ‘Why would you do something so stupid? He offers us nothing,’” a longtime Republican operative familiar with the discussion told NBC News.
“They were basically all like ‘JD, JD, JD,’” the operative said.
Trump ratified his sons’ recommendation here Monday, selecting Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his vice presidential candidate. Trump called Vance with the news 20 minutes before announcing it on social media, a source familiar with the call said.
In choosing Vance, Trump made a different calculation than he did in 2016 and leaned fully into his MAGA base. Back then, he looked to his daughter and her husband — the more establishment-friendly Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner —for strategic advice. This time, his red meat-throwing sons have a more central role. And instead of going with a longtime traditional Republican like Mike Pence, Trump chose the MAGA warrior Vance.
The next generation’s push was among the factors that elevated a 39-year-old Marine Corps veteran less than two years into his first Senate term over more seasoned politicians like Burgum and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Interviews with more than 20 sources familiar with the closely guarded process reveal a decision that rewarded youth, loyalty and an ability to reinforce Trump’s strength in the industrial and Midwest states he lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.
“Biden’s policies have devastated the working-class family,” Jai Chabria, an Ohio-based strategist who has been with Vance since the beginning of his young political career, said. “There’s probably not a person in the Republican Party who can speak to that issue better than JD.”
While Vance’s selection illustrates the ascendancy of younger right-wing leaders like Charlie Kirk, who also pushed for Vance to be chosen, it carries risks for Trump. Vance, who turns 40 next month, would be the third-youngest U.S. vice president if elected. He has a history of hard-line positions on issues such as abortion. And he has a reputation for hot rhetoric at a time when national leaders, including Trump, are urging cooler heads in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump last week in Pennsylvania.
The other finalists had different strengths that kept them under consideration — and weaknesses that hurt their chances.
Rubio, a foreign policy wonk who speaks Spanish, was seen by many as the contender most capable of bringing more Hispanic voters and suburban women to Trump’s coalition. But a handful of complications torpedoed his chances.
Rubio and Trump both live in Florida, posing a potential constitutional hang-up unless one of them established residency in a different state — and even then raising issues that made campaign officials nervous. That was Rubio’s main obstacle, two people familiar with the process said. But the sources did not say Rubio would have been chosen without the Florida issue.
It was “the hurdle the president couldn’t get over,” one of the sources said. It was “not worth the legal challenges.”
Burgum, a former software entrepreneur, had come out of nowhere as a top prospect after running his own long-shot campaign for president. He endorsed Trump on the eve of the Iowa caucuses and became a trusted surrogate. Trump’s wife, Melania, was a Burgum fan, according to a source close to the former first lady. His personal wealth could have been an asset, too, though two sources close to Burgum said he was never asked to help self-fund a Trump-Burgum ticket and that he never offered.
But Burgum’s signature last year on a bill that banned nearly all abortions in North Dakota emerged as a liability. Trump, like Burgum, has said abortion is an issue best left to states. When it came to his state, Burgum enacted a law stricter than the one that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed — and that Trump called a “terrible mistake.”
“Well, it’s a little bit of an issue,” Trump replied when asked Wednesday during an interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade if the North Dakota law hurt Burgum’s prospects.
'The Apprentice' for real
Behind the scenes, Trump and his team started with a list of nearly two dozen possible running mates, before whittling it down and, over the last six weeks of the process, focusing tightly on Vance, Burgum and Rubio.
The only two people directly involved for most of the process were Trump himself and top adviser Susie Wiles. At times, those being vetted were told whom they could talk to and what they could say as a way to further minimize leaks. That created an information vacuum filled by near daily rumors.
Kellyanne Conway, a longtime Trump adviser, pushed several candidates for vice president, three sources apprised of her lobbying said. At one point, those familiar with the process saw her as aligned closely with Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina. But the day after the Daily Beast reported that Conway was assisting Scott, she was seen with Rubio on Capitol Hill. And several observers saw Conway’s fingerprints when Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee was floated quietly — and somewhat randomly — as a late potential contender.“It did not help early on that there was a sense he was getting others to sort of prop up his name,” said a Republican operative familiar with the Trump campaign’s thinking on Hagerty. “It was well noticed. And it’s fair to say it did not help him.”
Trump and a close orbit of staffers would ask “almost anyone who met with them” who the pick should be, the operative said.
“If you met with him, he was going to ask you,” the person added, referring to Trump.
External factors — from a judge delaying Trump’s sentencing on 34 felony counts to a poor Biden debate performance that alarmed Democrats — kept pushing back Trump’s timeline to make and announce a decision. The Republican National Committee also looked into every possible way to delay the vice presidential announcement until Wednesday, since Trump and his team hoped to keep the suspense going. But ultimately, officials decided it had to be done in time for Monday’s roll call vote.
Trump, for his part, likened the process to a high-stakes game show, not unlike the reality TV program he presided over for years on NBC.
It’s “like a highly sophisticated version of ‘The Apprentice,’” Trump said Friday during an interview on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.”
Uncertainty remained in the days leading up to the announcement.
A rally last Tuesday near Miami fueled speculation that Rubio was about to be picked. Attendees read into one potential clue: the seating chart.
“His chair was right next to the stage, and everyone noticed. There were texts flying around the consultant world saying, like, ‘Do you see where his chair is?’” said a person familiar with the frenzy of the night. “Everyone was also pointing to the fact that Barron [Trump] was there, and was like, ‘It’s got to be Marco.’”
The event came and went with plenty of Trump’s teasing, running commentary from the stage that Rubio was in the running, but no announcement.
Trump then checked in with each of his three finalists, one-on-one — Burgum by phone, Rubio and Vance during meetings at his Mar-a-Lago resort late last week, sources familiar with the conversations said.
In his meeting with Trump, Rubio addressed the residency obstacle, saying he “didn’t want to be responsible” for plunging Trump’s campaign into “uncharted territory,” a source familiar with the conversation said. It wasn’t Rubio taking himself out of the running, exactly, but it was an acknowledgment of the complication.
More speculation sprouted up around Trump’s rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania — not far from the Ohio border and packed with white, working-class voters like the ones Vance wrote about in his best-selling 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The rally ultimately added another level of uncertainty: Would Trump, who survived an attempt on his life there, ask those voters to make someone so young next in line to the presidency?
A well-placed fan of 'Hillbilly Elegy'
Vance had hurdles other than age to overcome. As he toured the country in 2016 to promote his book, later adapted into an Oscar-nominated film, he became a prominent Trump critic and acknowledged voting for independent Evan McMullin for president that year.
He shed his skepticism over time, telling friends that while he had concerns about Trump’s tone and demeanor, he had come to admire him and agree with his policies. Even so, his history of Trump-bashing presented a potential barrier to his 2022 Senate campaign. Rivals in a crowded GOP primary were eager to weaponize the past comments, and Vance’s team quickly made efforts to neutralize them.
“Trump had every excuse in the world to not endorse JD,” a person close to Vance said.
An early meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Trump, Trump Jr. and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, a key Vance booster, helped clear the air.
It began with “10 minutes of President Trump busting JD’s chops,” the person close to Vance said. Trump, who had enjoyed Vance’s recent appearances on Fox News, then moved onto other topics.
Trump, by that point appreciating Vance’s zeal of the convert and seeing it as valuable testimonial to other past critics, eventually endorsed him in the primary. After the race was called, Vance received a congratulatory FaceTime call from Trump Jr., who was puffing a huge celebratory cigar, according to a source who witnessed the call.The eldest Trump son, who had been a fan of “Hillbilly Elegy” before the campaign, had come to like Vance personally, and the two developed a close friendship after Vance won his Senate race. The bond between Vance and Trump world was growing stronger — and it tightened in early 2023, when Vance helped Trump’s team organize a visit to East Palestine, Ohio, site of a toxic train derailment. On the plane to Ohio, Trump watched Vance do a live Fox News hit and said aloud to his traveling party: “This guy has really been f---ing incredible,” a source briefed on the exchange recalled.
Vance had no master plan to quickly elevate himself as a candidate for vice president, a source close to him said. It wasn’t until late 2023, when media reports began identifying him as a possible Trump running mate, that the idea even began to register to him and his team. Around that time, Vance traveled to Mar-a-Lago to pitch Trump on endorsing Bernie Moreno, a Republican Senate candidate facing another competitive primary in Ohio.
“There he is: JD Vance, everybody’s talking about him,” Trump said as Vance entered the room, according to a source familiar with the meeting. “He’s hot right now. He’s a hot one.”
Months later, when it became clear he was among Trump’s top prospects, Vance, his wife and his political team wrestled over the idea of positioning himself for the job, the source close to Vance said. Although Vance was enjoying life in the Senate, he was game for the opportunity.
His strategists began booking him for more TV interviews, including with mainstream outlets like CNN that they found adversarial to right-leaning politicians. And Vance, in an effort to quell concerns about his fundraising prowess, stepped up his efforts to raise money for Trump, including a full-court press on tech entrepreneur David Sacks, with whom he organized a Silicon Valley fundraiser that brought in $12 million.
“Your biggest viewed weakness is fundraising,” the person close to Vance recalled telling him. “So let’s take that talking point off the table before they can even use it against you and show that it’s bulls----. In other words, let’s head that argument off at the pass.”
Back to the beginning
Vance received his vetting questionnaire from Trump’s campaign via a text message more than six weeks ago, a source familiar with the process said. In the final stages of the search late last month, a campaign representative visited Vance at his home in Cincinnati and interviewed him during a 3 ½-hour drive to a Trump fundraiser in Cleveland, the source added.
But his status as the front-runner may have crystallized after Trump’s June 27 debate with Biden. Biden, 81, is more than three and a half years Trump's senior, but looked and sounded older that night and in subsequent public appearances that raised questions about his health and fitness to serve another four years.
If Biden steps aside, as many Democrats have called on him to do, some close to Trump see a scenario in which Vice President Kamala Harris is the nominee and picks Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro or a Midwesterner as her running mate. Vance, with his appeal to blue-collar, industrial-belt voters, could fortify the GOP ticket against such a move.
The final days of the search involved a last-minute rush of knife-fighting among Trump world insiders and outsiders pushing for a particular contender — and in some cases pushing to block Vance’s selection. Conway in particular was vehemently opposed to Vance and made her opinion known to Trump, three sources familiar with the discussions said.
Conway acknowledged in text and telephone exchanges that Vance was not her preference.
“I thought Rubio or [Virginia Gov. Glenn] Youngkin could get him more unique voters or help expand the map, and that he’ll need young ‘America First’ fighters like Vance in the U.S. Senate,” Conway said.
But even as he gave a thorough look to other options, Trump kept returning to Vance, who had long been at the top of his list.
“He went back to where he was at the beginning,” Conway said.
The efforts to diminish Vance were reminiscent of the push to keep Trump from endorsing him in the Senate primary two years earlier. But those rehashing Vance’s old comments weren’t telling Trump or his advisers anything they didn’t already know or hadn’t already factored into their calculations.
“I have been having flashbacks to the JD primary endorsem*nt process,” a person close to Vance said.
In the end, Vance’s allies and advocates viewed Burgum as the main competition — and the one who proved to be the toughest to dispatch. Last week, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post ran editorials pumping up Burgum’s candidacy, and former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove talked up Burgum during an appearance on Fox News. It was a trifecta from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, which Trump hadn’t quite forgiven for being an early booster of DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign.
Rove, a villain to many in Trump’s MAGA movement, may have been the final straw. Trump Jr. promptly shared with his father a Breitbart News article highlighting Rove’s Burgum praise.
It did not, according to a source familiar with the exchange, go over well.
