When he officially accepts the 2016 Republican nomination for president Thursday night, Donald Trump will do so as a different kind of Republican.
Or so the thinking goes.
Although Trump has won the Republican nomination for president in large part because he’s taken very non-Republican stances on trade, foreign policy, and the social safety net, a Trump presidency would be just like every other Republican presidency, arguably even worse.
We now know this for fact.
According to a story out today in the New York Times Magazine, when Donald Trump was looking for a running mate, he initially offered the job to one of his former opponents, Ohio Governor John Kasich.
And while that’s interesting enough on its own, what’s even more interesting is the offer the Trump campaign made to try to convince Kasich to join the ticket.
According to the New York Times, when Donald Trump, Jr. contacted a Kasich advisor about the running mate job, he told that adviser that his father wanted to make Kasich the “most powerful vice president in history.”
What happened next reveals a lot about the real Donald Trump.
When Kasich’s adviser asked how this would be the case Donald Jr. explained that his father’s vice president would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy.
Then what, the adviser asked, would Trump be in charge of?
“Making America great again” was the casual reply.
Now, we have no explicit confirmation of this, but everything in the Times’ report suggests that Trump made this exact same offer to Mike Pence before making him his running mate.
And if that’s true, it reveals two very important things.
The first thing it reveals is Trump’s management style. Like a lot of billionaire corporate executives, Trump is a delegator, which is fine for the business world, but poses some big problems for the presidency, a job that requires attention to detail and around-the-clock engagement.
So that’s the first thing this Times story reveals. The second thing it reveals is a much bigger deal.
