Donald Trump considered daughter Ivanka as 2016 running mate, says ex-deputy campaign chair
- President distrusted politicians and valued loyalty above all, repeatedly placing relatives in key campaign positions, writes former aide Rick Gates in new book
- Idea was gaining ‘momentum’ before Ivanka pulled herself out of the running
Donald Trump repeatedly discussed with advisers the idea of naming his daughter Ivanka as his running mate in 2016 before settling for Mike Pence, according to a former Trump campaign aide who became a star witness in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Rick Gates, who in the summer of 2016 was Trump’s deputy campaign chairman, describes in a new book how Trump – wary of the “Never Trump” sentiment in the Republican Party and still stinging from his competitors’ attacks during the party primary – deliberated for about a month on a vice-presidential candidate he could trust completely.
“During a VP discussion that included Jared [Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband] and the other kids all assembled in one room, Trump said, ‘I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?’ There was silence,” Gates writes in Wicked Game: An Insider’s Story on How Trump Won, Mueller Failed and America Lost.
“All heads turned toward her, and she just looked surprised. We all knew Trump well enough to keep our mouths shut and not laugh,” Gates writes, according to a copy of the book obtained by Bloomberg News. “He went on: ‘She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!’”
Gates writes that he thought at the time, “He’s not joking.” Spokespeople for the White House and for Ivanka Trump, who with her husband became senior advisers to the president after he took office, declined to comment.
