.. Addressing reporters at a breakfast on Monday, Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s de facto campaign manager, accused Mr. Kasich of acting “petulant” for refusing to support Mr. Trump following the governor’s defeat in the Republicans’ presidential nominating process.
“He’s embarrassing his party in Ohio,” Mr. Manafort said of Mr. Kasich, calling the governor’s chief political strategist the culprit behind Mr. Kasich’s strategy of not endorsing Mr. Trump. “Negotiations broke down because John Weaver thinks that John Kasich will have a better chance to be president by not supporting Donald Trump.”
.. also pointedly brought up Mr. Manafort’s history of working with contentious foreign leaders.
“Manafort’s problem, after all those years on the lam with thugs and autocrats, is that he can’t recognize principle and integrity,” Mr. Weaver wrote in an email. “I do congratulate him though on a great pivot at the start of the convention after such a successful vice-presidential launch. He has brought great professionalism, direct from Kiev, to Trump world.”
But Mr. Kasich, who will not appear onstage this week, is not just another Republican skeptic of Mr. Trump: he is also the two-term governor of the hotly contested swing state where the convention is taking place and where the election may be decided in November.
Recognizing this, Mr. Manafort used his remarks at the Bloomberg Politics-sponsored breakfast to assail Mr. Kasich, while also driving a wedge between the governor and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.
Seven Reasons It Made Sense for Donald Trump to pick Mike Pence
The running mate’s role is to support and amplify the boss’s message, not to usurp it. As Gingrich demonstrated on Thursday night, with his call for American Muslims to be subjected to a Sharia-law test, he’s not one of nature’s number twos.
.. Many of the potential problems with picking Gingrich also apply to the New Jersey governor, who is loud and domineering, and has an equally dismal approval rating: thirty-four per cent
.. Trump’s only realistic, or semi-realistic, chance of getting to two hundred and seventy electoral votes is to storm through the Midwest and the Rust Belt, racking up huge majorities of white votes. To this end, his ideal choice would have been John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, but Kasich didn’t want the job. Nor did Rob Portman, the Ohio senator who served in the Bush Administration, or Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin. And no one in Michigan or Pennsylvania was particularly suitable, either. That left Pence
.. In May, after wrapping up the nomination, he said, “This is called the Republican Party, not the Conservative Party.” But, like John McCain and Mitt Romney before him, Trump ultimately had to come to terms with the nature of the beast he is trying to ride to the White House.
.. Selecting Pence, a former head of the Republican Study Group on Capitol Hill, sends a signal that Trump is willing to work with the Party establishment and listen to what it says.
.. Ryan released a statement saying that there could be “no better choice for our vice-presidential candidate.”
.. Most people who take civil rights and the Constitution seriously are already aghast at the prospect of a Trump Presidency. Is there anyone out there who was willing to look past Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims, a resumption of torture, and the deportation of eleven million undocumented workers, but who will not vote for the Republican ticket because of Pence’s support for an Indiana law that allowed businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians? Perhaps such people exist, but I doubt there are very many.
The Case for Newt
John Kasich, the popular governor of Ohio, would have been a natural pick but doesn’t want to be in the same room as Trump, let alone on the same ticket.
.. Trump is going to need a wingman who can believe six impossible things before breakfast; who can defend the Muslim travel ban during those times when it is Trump’s position and skate away from it during those times when it’s not; who can take any new controversy of the hour, defend it and explain it away and look forward to the next one with relish; and who won’t ever let personal or philosophical standards get in the way.
.. he is as undisciplined as Bill Clinton, although without the roguish charm; and he’s not going to be liked by anyone who isn’t already a fan. As my colleague Jonah Goldberg points out, Gingrich would be able to defend Trump’s off-the-wall statements, but it’s not clear Trump would be able to defend Gingrich’s.
.. Not only would he defend Trump ably, he would put whatever Trump says in the most impressive light possible. You could shake Gingrich awake at 3 a.m., tell him Trump just came out for nationalizing the banks, and he would rattle off a five-minute riff on how it has always been the policy of the future and the country is lucky to have such a radical agent of change.
.. This wouldn’t ordinarily be a qualification for a VP pick, but Trump is running a media campaign, so he should pick the most compelling, deft media personality on offer, and that’s clearly Gingrich.
.. Besides, if the GOP is committed to a brash, unpredictable and divisive candidate at the top of the ticket, it might as well go all the way. Pick Newt, and let her rip.
No Speaking Slots? Ted Cruz and John Kasich Brush Off Trump’s Threat
Ted Cruz and John Kasich have a message for Donald J. Trump: They don’t care if they are not invited to speak at his convention.
As Mr. Trump tries to plan a convention that will run as smoothly as possible, he said in an interview with The New York Times last week that he would not invite either Mr. Cruz or Mr. Kasich, both former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, to speak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland unless they endorsed him.
That is fine, both said on Monday. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cruz, Catherine Frazier, said the Texas senator did not have any expectation about receiving a speaking slot. A spokesman for Mr. Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was similarly indifferent.