Trump had already told Pence he was the pick, but the nominee was wavering. Here's the untold story of how two aides took matters into their own hands:
It was July 14, 2016, just four days before the Republican National Convention, and Donald Trump was still waffling on who to pick as his running mate.
in a meeting at the Governor’s Mansion—had gotten the Indiana governor to the brink of history. But it was a previously unreported threat from Pence’s political brain trust that would land him on the ticket and ultimately lift Trump over the finish line months later, changing the course of history.Trump didn’t particularly like Pence. To Trump, he carried the whiff of a loser.
With the leaders of the establishment on his side, and no connections to Trumpworld, Pence was at the bottom of the small list of finalists—but he was still in the mix. About 25 high-dollar donors from Indiana showed up to the fundraiser late that afternoon at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. After brief remarks from Trump and Pence, they set up for photos with Trump inside the Crystal Terrace, a large, elegant ballroom with sweeping views of downtown.
The Secret Service agents assigned to Trump motioned for him to get moving, but Trump waved them off. Then Cardwell, a small-business owner for decades, remembered that he was talking with a businessman, so he made a finer point, which played to Trump’s ego and inclinations: “The two of you would be the best public-private partnership in history.” Trump smiled and asked for Cardwell’s cellphone number.
Trump was gregarious. “You’ve really got a lot of muscle around here. Everybody has these good things to say about you,” he told Pence, according to Obst. Mike and Karen Pence spent the night picking flowers for the breakfast in the backyard, using the light of their iPhones. Karen served breakfast for the Trumps and her husband's small team at the Governor’s Mansion. After the meal, Donald Trump and Mike Pence sat down with a small group in the “bunker”—the furnished basement of the mansion. They got down to brass tacks, in a previously unreported meeting.
“So, if you want me to do it, I’m going to say, ‘Yes.’ If you don’t want me to do it, I’m going to work really hard for you and the other guy. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter,” he said, according to Obst. Trump hopped back in his motorcade to have lunch with Gingrich at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis. Sean Hannity, an unabashed Gingrich supporter, had flown Gingrich into Indianapolis at the last minute, sensing the coveted spot on the ticket was slipping away from Gingrich. But Gingrich was stuck waiting as Pence held court. Hannity’s instincts were dead-on: In 24 hours, Gingrich had fallen from the pick to the bottom of the pack.
They tried to stay focused on the race for governor, but it was hard. Trump was mercurial indeed, and an excellent encounter could be wiped away with another flat tire or impressive showing by Christie or anyone else. Nothing could be truly cemented until one week from then, in Cleveland, when the Republican delegates approved Trump’s anointed running mate.
Then CNN reported that not long after Trump made his verbal commitment to Pence, he was already asking aides if it were too late to back out of the decision. The announcement was supposed to be made on Thursday, but the Trump campaign delayed. Trump said this was in deference to the terrorist attack in Nice, France, that had killed 86 people. This rang odd, since global events rarely seemed to have any effect on Trump.
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