Book: Trump considered Ivanka as his 2016 VP running mate
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 GOP primary — deliberated for about a month on a vice presidential candidate he could trust completely.
“During a VP discussion that included Jared 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,” referring to Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner.
“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.
The book is set to be released by Post Hill Press on Oct. 13, three weeks before Trump stands for re-election. Pence, the former Indiana governor, has become one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, often criticized by Democrats for public praise of the president that veers toward the obsequious. He’ll debate California Senator Kamala Harris, former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate, on prime-time television on Oct. 7.
Gates was indicted in October 2017 by prosecutors investigating Russian interference in the election and ties between Trump’s campaign and Moscow. He became a cooperating witness and was sentenced in December 2019 to three years’ probation and 45 days of intermittent confinement for tax and lobbying crimes committed with Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
As he contemplated running mates in 2016, Gates writes, Trump was open to the possibility of adding former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or then-Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee to the ticket. Both took themselves out of consideration, Gates writes.