Trump announces Sen. JD Vance, 39, as running mate

Donald Trump named right-wing Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate for the US presidential election on July 15, rewarding a former harsh critic who has become one of his most loyal supporters in Congress.

Mr Trump, 78, announced his choice on the first day of the Republican Party convention in Milwaukee, an extravaganza heightened by the attempted assassination of the former president.

Seen as the standard-bearer of a new type of populism that has emerged under Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance, 39, embraces the former president’s isolationist, anti-immigration America First movement.

One of the least experienced vice presidential picks in modern history, the one-term senator is further to the right than the former president on many issues, including abortion, where he supports calls for federal legislation.

He rose to prominence with his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” a bestselling account of his Appalachian family and modest upbringing in the Rust Belt that gave voice to the resentment of rural working-class America left behind.

Critics have pointed to numerous clumsy remarks that Mr. Vance, the former “Never Trump guy,” has made in the past, including calling the billionaire an “idiot,” “harmful” and “reprehensible” and suggesting that he was “America’s Hitler.”

Mr. Vance has reinvented himself as a Trump supporter in recent years and ultimately won the former president’s key endorsement in the 2022 Ohio Senate race.

Mr. Trump could have made his big reveal at any time in the days leading up to Milwaukee, but all his pre-convention plans were upended when a gunman tried to kill him at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.

“Supposed to be dead”

With the country still reeling from images of a bloodied Mr Trump being escorted off a rally stage, some 50,000 Republicans descended on the shores of Lake Michigan for the four-day rally, four months before the election against Democratic President Joe Biden.

The assassination attempt, in which a bystander was killed and two others injured, was expected to dominate the proceedings, with Mr Trump rejecting calls for a delay and vowing to be “defiant in the face of wickedness”.

“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” he told the The New York Post during an interview aboard his plane to Milwaukee, during which he reportedly had a white bandage over his ear and a large bruise on his forearm where Secret Service agents had grabbed him.

The Secret Service, which has been battling criticism that it failed to protect Mr Trump from the shooter, said it was “fully prepared” to provide security for the convention.

Leading in many polls, despite his conviction in the New York criminal bribery case, Mr. Trump exudes confidence.

Mr Biden, 81, is facing calls from his own camp to drop out of the race over concerns about his age.

Mr Trump scored another victory on July 15, when a judge dismissed the criminal case against him, accusing him of endangering national security by withholding top-secret documents after leaving the White House.

Message of unity

He immediately reached out to Truth Social to demand that all legal proceedings against him be dropped, again insisting that he was being targeted for political reasons.

Mr Trump told the Post he had “prepared an extremely tough speech” about Mr Biden’s “horrible administration” to deliver when he becomes the official Republican Party nominee on July 18.

While some Republicans, including Mr. Vance, have sought to blame the attack on Democrats’ anti-Trump rhetoric, Mr. Trump has also said he hopes to “unify our country.”

But to do so, he would have to curb his instinct to settle scores, as demonstrated by his call to his supporters to “fight” in the seconds following the July 13 attack.

The Milwaukee rally is largely designed in Mr. Trump’s image, with digital banners broadcasting a message across the convention’s sprawling arena: “Make America Great Again.”

The rebranding reflects his takeover of the party.

Weakened by his 2020 election defeat and the subsequent Capitol riot by his supporters, Mr. Trump has spent much of the past four years reshaping Republican politics.

By installing loyalists, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, at the head of the Republican National Committee, the billionaire has effectively crushed dissent.

The Milwaukee convention is also a family affair, with Ms. Lara and the former president’s two eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, all expected to address delegates.