Donald Trump has selected JD Vance, a republican senator from Ohio, as his running mate, elevating a politician who once criticised the former president but has since become one of his most stalwart defenders.
The news, carried on Mr Trump’s Truth Social media website, emerged at the start of the four-day republican National Convention in Milwaukee to nominate the party’s presidential ticket.
The selection of James David Vance, author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, could increase the odds of Trump supporters turning out for the November 5th election as the Ohio native is deeply popular with the republican candidate’s base.
A staunch conservative from a republican state, Mr Vance (39) is unlikely to bring many new voters into Mr Trump’s corner, however, and may even alienate some moderates.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump welcomed the dismissal of the pending classified documents case against him on Monday, as federal investigations into the security breaches behind the botched attempt to assassinate him at a rally in Pennsylvania at the weekend continued.
The decision by federal judge Aileen M Cannon, who was put on the bench by former president Trump, found that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith had been in violation of the appointments clause of the US constitution. The ruling was the subject of instant legal debate and interpretation as it stands in direct conflict with previous court decisions dating back to the Richard Nixon case in the Watergate era. The decision will almost certainly be appealed but it effectively rules out any chance of the case being heard before the November election.
The announcement added another detail to an extraordinary 36 hours in the life of the republican nominee. He welcomed the decision through his usual channel of Truth Social, where he repeated his wish to help “in uniting our nation after the horrific events” in which one spectator lost his life during the shooting in Butler.
Mr Trump said the dismissal of the Florida case should be “followed quickly by the dismissal of all the witch hunts – the January 6th hoax in Washington DC, the Manhattan DA’s zombie case, the New York AG [Attorney General] scam, fake claims about a woman I have never met and the Georgia ‘Perfect’ phone call charges. The Democrat justice department co-ordinated all of these political attacks, which are an election interference conspiracy against Joe Biden’s political opponent – me.”
He also reflected on his brush with death at the Pennsylvania rally, when a bullet from the volley of shots fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks grazed his right ear, drawing blood but left him relatively unharmed. Recalling the moments of bedlam when Secret Service agents rushed to shield him, he said in an interview: “The agents hit me so hard that my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight.” He also remarked on the photograph which depicted him bloodied and raising a clenched fist seconds after the attempt to take his life.
“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” he said.
“They’re right, and I didn’t die. Usually, you have to die to have an iconic picture. I just wanted to keep speaking, but I just got shot.” – Additional reporting from Reuters
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