Former President Donald Trump has been reveling in the turmoil surrounding the Biden campaign and pressure from Biden’s party to step down. Trump is also expected to soon announce his Republican running mate. Trump says he’s “pretty well set in my own mind” on his choice of running mate. He dished on the finalists in a Fox News Radio interview Wednesday. Is Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s facial hair a strike against him? No, Vance “looks good. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said with a laugh. What about the highly restrictive abortion law North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law? “Well, it’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a pretty strong ban,” said Trump. And what about the fact that Sen. Marco Rubio would likely have to move out of Florida? “No, but it does make it more complicated,” he said.
Quick Read
- Trump on JD Vance: ‘He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,’ as 1 of his VP pick contenders
- Key Details:
- Trump’s VP Decision: Former President Donald Trump is set to announce his running mate soon and discussed potential contenders in a Fox News Radio interview.
- Comment on JD Vance: Trump praised Ohio Sen. JD Vance, saying he “looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,” despite concerns about Vance’s facial hair.
- Other Contenders: Trump mentioned North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as potential picks. He acknowledged Burgum’s restrictive abortion law could be an issue and noted Rubio would have complications due to his residence in Florida.
- Beard Controversy: Reports suggest Trump traditionally dislikes facial hair, potentially impacting Vance’s chances. Trump himself did not discuss this directly but focused on Vance’s positive qualities.
- Announcement Timing: Trump plans to announce his running mate close to the Republican convention in Milwaukee, preferring the traditional convention timing for such announcements.
- Comparison to Lincoln: At 39, Vance’s career contrasts with Lincoln’s at the same age, where Lincoln was a clean-shaven lawyer and former congressman. Lincoln grew his beard later at the suggestion of a young supporter, which Vance might similarly use to project experience and toughness.
- Trump’s VP Pick Context: Trump’s selection process reflects both personal preferences and strategic considerations, aiming to bolster his ticket for the upcoming election.
The Associated Press has the story:
Trump: Sen. JD Vance ‘looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,’ as 1 of his VP pick contenders
Newslooks- (AP)
Former President Donald Trump has been reveling in the turmoil surrounding the Biden campaign and pressure from Biden’s party to step down. Trump is also expected to soon announce his Republican running mate. Trump says he’s “pretty well set in my own mind” on his choice of running mate. He dished on the finalists in a Fox News Radio interview Wednesday.
Is Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s facial hair a strike against him? No, Vance “looks good. He looks like a young Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said with a laugh. What about the highly restrictive abortion law North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law? “Well, it’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a pretty strong ban,” said Trump. And what about the fact that Sen. Marco Rubio would likely have to move out of Florida? “No, but it does make it more complicated,” he said.
JD Vance is still in contention to be named Donald Trump’s running mate, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee indicated on Wednesday, despite the Ohio senator committing what Trump is reported to consider a heinous faux pas.
According to multiple reports, Vance’s offence does not lie in past decisions to call Trump “America’s Hitler” and Trumpism the “Opioid of the Masses”. Vance’s mistake, according to a bristling mass of pundits, is to have a beard. “JD has a beard,” an unnamed “Trump confidant” and Vance supporter said this week. “But Trump is a clean-shaven guy. He just doesn’t like facial hair.”
That judgment seemed to check out, given proliferating reports about Trump’s dislike for beards, as sported by his sons Donald Jr and Eric and senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, and indeed for the moustache sported by John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser.
Trump did not discuss Vance further. But he also said he would announce his running mate – with the Florida senator Marco Rubio and North Dakota governor Doug Burgum both empirically clean-shaven and reportedly in contention – “close to” the Republican convention in Milwaukee next week. “It used to be picked during the convention,” Trump said, “and it made the convention frankly, more interesting. The pick used to be during the convention – that’s what I’d like to do.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump’s comparison of Vance to “a young Abraham Lincoln” was not strictly accurate. At 39, Vance is a former “public affairs marine” turned venture capitalist and bestselling author who first resisted Trumpism but then adopted it as he won a Senate seat in 2022, emerging as a fiery rightwing populist voice.
When Lincoln was 39, in 1848, he was a clean-shaven lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, a former Whig congressman ejected from Washington after one term. Lincoln grew his beard – but not a moustache – when he was well into middle age, at 51, after winning the presidency as a Republican and apparently at the suggestion of a correspondent 40 years his junior.
“I have got four brothers,” Grace Bedell, 11 and of Westfield, New York, told Lincoln in a letter in October 1860, “and a part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you will let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. “You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers, and they would tease their husbands to vote for you, and then you would be president.”
Vance may have a similar motive for keeping his beard, as he seeks to project the necessary experience and toughness to appeal to Trump and voters. “Without the beard, Vance looks like he’s 12,” an unnamed Trump adviser said this week.
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