Donald Trump postpones his announcement of who he’s picked as a running mate

(Michael Conroy / AP)

Donald Trump will name his running mate over the weekend, he told donors at a Bel-Air fundraiser Thursday evening after postponing his Friday announcement because of the attack that killed dozens in France.

Trump abruptly pushed back his planned announcement after a frenzied day of leaks and outright speculation that indicated he had selected Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to run alongside him.

He did not mention Pence’s name during his remarks at the fundraiser, according to a person who attended the reception at the mansion of philanthropist Carla Sands, the widow of real-estate mogul Fred Sands.

About 200 donors contributed $2,700 to $449,400 per person to attend. About 60 who donated at least $25,000 or raised at least $27,000 also attended a dinner of pan-seared salmon and fresh fig salad with Trump.

The hosts included Sands; billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack, who held Trump’s first major fundraiser in May; former Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Jamie McCourt; fast-food honcho Andy Puzder, and Galpin Motors owner Bert Boeckmann, according to an invitation obtained by The Times. Actor Jon Voight, a well-known Hollywood conservative, was also there, according to the person who spoke to The Times.

Trump also told donors that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s greatest achievement was getting out of an FBI indictment, and that she would be worse than President Obama. Trump also said America needs more people like basketball coach Bobby Knight, who has endorsed him.

Donald Trump struck a bellicose posture on terrorism and immigration Thursday in the aftermath of the truck attack that killed scores of people in France, saying he would take extreme measures to keep Islamic jihadists out of the country.

Asked by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly whether he agreed that “we are in a world war scenario,” Trump said: “I certainly do, and I have been saying it for a long time, and it’s out of control.”

The Republican presidential hopeful, who has called for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S., vowed to make it “very, very hard for people to come into our country from terrorist areas.”

“I would do extreme vetting,” he said in one of two phone interviews with Fox from his house in Beverly Hills before leaving for a campaign fundraiser in Bel Air. “I would call it extreme vetting, too.”

Trump said he would ask Congress to declare war on the Islamic State terrorist group. He attacked President Obama for letting Syrian war refugees into the United States and criticized the former secretary of State for supporting the policy.

“We’re weak, and we’re weakly led and ineffective,” he said. Trump also accused Clinton of creating the Islamic State terrorist group “with her stupid policies.”

In a CNN phone interview, Clinton said the U.S. was “at war with these terrorist groups and what they represent.”

“It’s a different kind of war and we have to be smart about how we wage it and win it,” she said.

She called for focusing on intelligence, partnering with other nations and cracking down on the Islamic State’s ability to recruit members online. But she urged caution at the prospect of waging a traditional boots-on-the-ground effort to defeat them.

“They would love to draw the United States into a ground war in Syria,” she said. “They actually think the end times could be hastened if we had some great confrontation in the region.”

Clinton largely avoided engaging Trump, except when asked about his remarks on Syrian refugees.

“Trump has said this repeatedly and has been called out for his blatant lies about it,” she said, adding that refugees would only be admitted after they were thoroughly screened.

Both candidates spoke as French authorities were still clearing dead bodies from the streets of Nice, where a truck loaded with weaponry plowed over revelers at a Bastille Day fireworks celebration on the waterfront.

“The Price is Right” host Drew Carey is hosting a fundraiser for Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson at his Hollywood Hills home this month, according to an invitation obtained by The Times.

“Our goal is to help Gary reach the magic 15% number in national polls, which will place him on the big debate stage with Donald and Hillary,” the invitation says. “And if that occurs, then all bets are off on who our next president will be!”

The guest list for the July 23 event will be capped at 100 donors.

Carey, a registered Republican who has long identified as Libertarian, has made clear his opposition to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“Donald Trump Is a Bad Person,” Carey tweeted in December, linking to an article of the same title.

Relations between the two men were apparently better in the past. In a 1997 appearance on “The Drew Carey Show,” Trump gave Carey and his friends New York Yankees tickets.

Political strategists widely viewed Donald Trump’s possible selection of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate as an olive branch to social conservatives and the supporters of second-place finisher Ted Cruz.

But people who backed Cruz in the primary were torn about whether the gambit would pay off.

The selection of Pence would “make me feel better about voting for Trump,” said Alexandria Coronado, an Orange County GOP leader who helped Cruz raise money in California. “I’ve met Mike Pence before at conservative events, and I have respect for Mike Pence and for the stances he’s taken and the work he’s accomplished in politics.”

She is not a fan of Trump, but said she is “being dragged along kicking and screaming” to vote for him because she thinks a Hillary Clinton presidency would be disastrous for the nation.

But Mike Schroeder, Cruz’s California political director, said he doesn’t believe Pence will make Trump any more palatable to Cruz supporters.

“Trump would have to do so much to mollify the Cruz people. Remember, he didn’t just attack Cruz, he attacked Cruz’s family and his supporters,” Schroeder said.

The fight between the two men grew increasingly testy: Trump raised a false conspiracy theory that Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy; tweeted an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife comparing her with his own wife, a former model; and called Cruz’s supporters corrupt and lobbyists.

“He would have to do something I don’t think he’s capable of doing, not actually apologizing, but saying things went too far or something to talk about that 800-pound gorilla in the room and deal with it,” Schroeder said. “I don’t think he can do that.”

An Indiana law that caused an uproar when it was passed in 2015 is certain to be back in the spotlight if Gov. Mike Pence is Donald Trump’s pick to be his running mate.

Pence signed legislation last year that allowed residents and businesses to ignore state laws that conflict with their religious beliefs, which was immediately criticized by opponents as legal permission to discriminate against gays. Pence and allies described it as protecting the exercise of religion. But corporations and the gay community railed against the law, and Pence ultimately signed a revised version that explicitly prohibited businesses from denying services to anyone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Charles Moran, the former chairman of the California chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, said he appreciated that Pence listened to the concerns of business leaders and the LGBT community.

“He evolved, and I like people who evolve on issues,” said Moran, who is heading to the Republican National Convention next week in Cleveland as a delegate supporting Trump. “He is someone who shows what happens when you sit down and talk to these different constituencies and come up with something that works, and that’s what Indiana ended up doing in the long run.”

Some conservatives, though, say Pence’s signing of the amended law represented a betrayal.

“What Pence did to us last year on religious liberty is the worst back-stab I’ve ever witnessed, and that’s saying something given the state of today’s GOP,” said Steve Deace, a conservative Iowa radio host who supported Sen. Ted Cruz in the Republican primary. “He not only caved, but his so-called fix actually made the issue worse.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced Hillary Clinton in his state by asking the audience three questions to consider when vetting candidates for president.

Kaine referenced Trump’s “you’re fired” slogan while calling for a leader who united Americans instead of dividing them.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine gave Hillary Clinton supporters a Spanish lesson at a campaign event in his state Thursday.

Kaine discussed the time he spent living in Honduras and gave a vocabulary lesson by teaching the crowd to say “ready for Hillary” in Spanish.

Political organizers are already seizing on the Pokemon Go phenomenon, using the popular smartphone game to draw in potential supporters.

Unlike the typical video game, which is played while sitting still, Pokemon Go requires people to venture out into the world to find animated characters that are tagged to different locations.

Players have been congregating in parks and other public places in the hunt for Pokemon, so NextGen Climate, a California-based political organization founded by billionaire activists Tom Steyer, seized on all the activity.

The group purchased a rare Pokemon character and located it on an Iowa college campus where it was signing up supporters Saturday. Usually 10 or so people sign up 10 per hour, but this time organizers scored about 60.

Now NextGen is taking the strategy national.

“By meeting young people where they are—whether it’s on Snapchat or at a Poké Stop—we’re getting these potential voters excited about choosing our next president,” said Suzanne Henkels, a spokeswoman for the group.

Besides Iowa, NextGen will be placing rare Pokemon in New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Nevada.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign joined in on the action too, scheduilng a campaign event this weekend in suburban Ohio -- not far from the site of next week’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland -- that combines a Poké Stop with a drive to register voters.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, a conservative Republican who reportedly will be chosen as Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick Friday, is not the most flamboyant of those on the New York businessman’s short list of possible running mates.

Nor is the first-term governor, who served more than a decade in Congress, especially popular.

A Morning Consult poll released Thursday shows Pence generates little enthusiasm among voters.

Pence’s name on the GOP ticket would make 12 % of voters overall more likely to support Trump, according to the poll. But 28% of those polled said they don’t know or have no opinion of Pence.

Among Republican voters, 22% said they were more likely to support Trump and 11% said they would be less likely, the poll found.

The poll surveyed more than 2,000 voters July 8-10.

“Those numbers are expected from someone who has little national profile,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who was not involved in the Morning Consult poll.

“Unless they’ve run for president before or, perhaps, are a celebrity, name ID just won’t be high and that correlates to enthusiasm. At the end of the day, [Pence] is a solid choice – he was respected in Washington.”

In Indiana, where Pence is up for reelection this year, his job approval rating is far from stellar.

A WTHR/Howey Politics Indiana Poll from May found 40 % of voters approved of his job performance, but 42 % disapproved. About 60% of Republicans in the state supported his reelection.

Donald Trump Jr. told NBC on Thursday that his father had narrowed his choices to Pence, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

When the Morning Consult poll asked voters about Gingrich, a national figure who spent nearly two decades in Congress, 21% said they would be more inclined to support Trump if Gingrich was on the ticket. About 20% said they had never heard of Gingrich.

By contrast, 17% said they would be more likely to support Trump if Christie, who ended his presidential bid in February and endorsed Trump, was on the ticket. And 19 % said they had never heard of the New Jersey governor.

Protests at the GOP convention next week could turn violent, top U.S. security officials told lawmakers Thursday, citing mounting tensions since the killing of five police officers in Dallas and recent police shootings of unarmed black men.

“I am concerned about the prospect of demonstrations getting out of hand,” Jeh Johnson, the secretary of Homeland Security, told the House Homeland Security Committee. “I am concerned about the possibility of violence.”

More than 4,000 law enforcement, intelligence and other officials are assigned to protect delegates and others at the Republican National Convention that starts Monday in Cleveland, Johnson said.

Agents will deploy from the Secret Service, Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard and other agencies, he said.

A similar number will help secure the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia the following week.

Johnson said he would visit the convention site in Cleveland on Friday to inspect security preparations. He’ll visit Philadelphia the following week.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who chairs the committee, cited reports that some protest organizers have told demonstrators to bring weapons to Cleveland. Ohio allows gun owners with permits to openly carry a firearm.

“Obviously there’s great concern in the American people of the status and security at that convention,” McCaul said.

James Comey, the FBI director, said domestic radical groups could try to take advantage of the large, high-profile gathering to launch an attack.

“There is a concern any time there’s an event like this that people from across a spectrum of radical groups will be attracted to it,” he said.

“So we’re watching it very, very carefully.”

The FBI has assigned “hundreds” of agents to help secure Cleveland and monitor intelligence reports, he said.

Twitter: @ByBrianBennett

brian.bennett@latimes.com

Donald Trump has reportedly settled on Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate, with an official announcement expected Friday in Manhattan.

The Indianapolis Star said that Pence had been chosen and a Trump campaign insider confirmed the candidate was moving in that direction, though his final decision would not be clear until the actual announcement took place.

Trump has proved nothing if not unpredictable and his aides cautioned Thursday against drawing premature conclusions.

Asked about Trump’s choice, spokeswoman Hope Hicks referred to a series of tweets sent by top campaign officials insisting no decision had been made.

“A decision will be made in the near future and the announcement will be tomorrow at 11 a.m. in New York,” campaign chairman Paul Manafort wrote.

Other finalists reportedly include Newt Gingrich, the former GOP House speaker, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Pence met with Trump several times over the last few days, including again on Wednesday.

“The Pence people think it’s him,” according to an official familiar with the governor’s team who was granted anonymity to discuss the vice presidential vetting process.

“Pence thinks it’s him,” the official said. “He walked out of that [Wednesday} meeting and told his people: ‘It’s us.’”

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Silicon Valley has made no secret of its distaste for Donald Trump, which cuts across party lines.

So it must have been unsettling when it was revealed this week that one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs, billionaire Peter Thiel, would be among the headliners taking the podium to speak in favor of Trump at the Republican National Convention next week in Cleveland.

Thiel already had drawn ire in the innovation community when it became known that he would be a delegate for Trump at the convention.

Lest there be any confusion about where most tech leaders fall this election, 145 of them joined together Thursday to pen a blistering critique of the presumptive Republican nominee. It was posted on Medium.

“We have listened to Donald Trump over the past year and we have concluded: Trump would be a disaster for innovation,” reads the letter, which is signed by such luminaries as Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Qualcomm executive chairman Paul Jacobs.

“His vision stands against the open exchange of ideas, free movement of people, and productive engagement with the outside world that is critical to our economy  —  and that provide the foundation for innovation and growth,” the group wrote.

It goes on to declare that Trump’s “reckless disregard for our legal and political institutions threatens to upend what attracts companies to start and scale in America.”

Among those who did not sign the letter was Meg Whitman, the HP chief executive and former Republican gubernatorial nominee in California. Maybe the language was not strong enough for her. In a meeting with donors last month, she compared Trump to Mussolini and Hitler.

The GOP convention rules committee, which is key to shaping the nominating event itself, began meeting early Thursday and was supposed to dive into its lengthy agenda. Instead, the meeting was paused until early afternoon not long after it started. Committee chair Enid Mickelson blamed the lag on a snarled printer.

But the conspiratorial atmosphere of the gathering -- already charged by a last-ditch insurgent effort to change the rules to potentially block Donald Trump’s nomination -- was heightened as leaders of the mutiny huddled behind closed doors with officials from the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign.

Dozens of reporters staked out the meeting room as RNC staffers stood guard outside the doors. Inside, reportedly, were GOP Chairman Reince Priebus; Utah Sen. Mike Lee, a close ally of Ted Cruz’s; and Kendal Unruh, the Colorado delegate leading the movement to free fellow delegates from the requirement that they vote based on the outcome of their states’ nominating contests.

Turns out the broken printer was a ruse, Time magazine reported, meant to facilitate the talks over a series of rules amendments that would lengthen the proceedings.

Paul Manafort, the head of Donald Trump’s campaign, said he was “not worried at all” that the anti-Trump faction would advance its proposed rule change to the full convention next week.

“They’re trying to drag this thing out,” added Jonathan Barnett, a rules committee member from Arkansas. “They feel like if they make this thing last and last and last, they get more grounds for their situation.”

But, Barnett, said flatly: “They don’t have the votes.”

Asked about the troublesome printer jam, Barnett chuckled.

“Is that a code word?”

(Mike Groll/Associated Press)

Bernie Sanders may have waited until the last minute to endorse his former rival Hillary Clinton, but he wasted no time moving onto the next thing: a new book.

Sanders’ “Our Revolution: A Future To Believe In” was announced Thursday by its publisher, Thomas Dunne, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

“Our Revolution” will be published on Nov. 15. That’s exactly one week after the general election.

What that means is that a week after either Democrat Clinton or Republican Donald Trump is elected president, Sanders will have a means and reason to discuss his own ideas with the public once again.

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued an extraordinary apology Thursday morning after she was sharply criticized for comments about Donald Trump.

“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” she said in a statement. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”

In three separate interviews, Ginsburg had attacked the presumed GOP presidential nominee, calling him egotistical, inconsistent and a “faker.”

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A Donald Trump-Newt Gingrich presidential ticket would bring two bold “pirates” together, the former House speaker said amid fevered speculation that he is on Trump’s shortlist of potential running mates.

Gingrich told Fox News on Wednesday that he can bolster Trump’s outsider credentials because he doesn’t fear challenging the Republican establishment.

“I’m an outsider. I’m oriented toward moving the great base of the party, communicating big ideas,” Gingrich, once one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington, said on “Hannity.”

But Gingrich also acknowledged that another potential Trump pick, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, might calm Republicans nervous about Trump’s candidacy in a way that he couldn’t.

“Donald Trump is like a pirate; he’s outside the normal system, he gets things done, he’s bold, he’s actually like a figure out of a movie .... Do you really want a two-pirate ticket?” Gingrich said of himself and Trump.

He compared Trump and Pence to Ronald Reagan selecting George H.W. Bush as his running mate in 1980 — a stabilizing voice for a radical candidate.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and nearly all of Donald Trump’s family members will speak at the Republican National Convention, the party announced Thursday. However, several Trump supporters who were the object of speculation are absent from the list, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, boxing promoter Don King, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, famed college basketball coach Bobby Knight and vice presidential hopeful Gov. Mike Pence (R-Ind.).

Here’s a list of the speakers.

Trump’s GOP primary rivals:

• Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)
• Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.)
• former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
• Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson

Members of Congress:

• House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
• House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
• Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
• Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.)
• Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.)
• Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.)
• Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
• Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)
• Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
• Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.)
• Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)

Other political leaders:

• RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
• former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
• Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.)
• Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.)
• Gov. Mary Fallin (R-Okla.)
• Gov. Rick Scott (R-Fla.)
• Florida Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi
• former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
• former U.S. Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey
• Arkansas Atty. Gen. Leslie Rutledge
• retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
• Co-Chairman of the RNC Sharon Day
• College RNC National Chairman Alex Smith
• NRA lobbyist Chris Cox
• National Diversity Coalition for Trump advisor Dr. Lisa Shin

Survivors of the Benghazi attacks:

• Mark Geist
• John Tiegen
• Pat Smith (mother of Sean Smith, who was killed)

Trump family members:

• wife Melania Trump
• son Donald Trump Jr.
• son Eric Trump
• daughter Ivanka Trump
• daughter Tiffany Trump

Religious leaders:

• Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.
• Rabbi Haskel Lookstein (Lookstein said later that he won’t speak)
• Pastor Mark Burns
• Pastor Darrell Scott

Military family and members:

• Karen Vaughn, mother of slain Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn
• Kathryn Gates-Skipper, co-chair of Florida Veterans for Donald Trump, first female combat Marine
• Marcus Luttrell, retired Navy SEAL known as “the Lone Survivor”

Celebrities, athletes, business and other leaders:

• venture capitalist Peter Thiel
• real estate investor Tom Barrack
• general manager of Trump Winery Kerry Woolard
• actor Antonio Sabàto Jr.
• Las Vegas casino owner Phil Ruffin
• soap opera actress and avocado farmer Kimberlin Brown
• Businesswoman Michelle Van Etten
• oil entrepreneur Harold Hamm
• Vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation Lynne Patton
• pro golfer Natalie Gulbis
• UFC President Dana White
• retired astronaut Eileen Collins
• formerly paralyzed Michigan football player Brock Mealer
• Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke

An earlier version of this post misidentified Darrell Scott and incorrectly listed Tim Tebow as a speaker. Scott is a pastor, and Tebow has said his announced appearance was a rumor.

In 1840, the Democratic Party platform, buttressing the run of unpopular incumbent Martin Van Buren, clocked in at fewer than 540 words: a recitation of the powers and limits of government in simple, broad strokes.

Now, party platforms have ballooned to tens of thousands of words covering such crucial issues as foreign policy as well as ones that perhaps only the most dedicated party activists could love, such as the fate of the endangered prairie chicken and sage grouse.

But beyond the canned rhetoric and pedantic detail that risk rendering them all but ignored even by party leaders, platforms have retained an important place in the American political process. They have served as predictors of how candidates will try to govern once in office. And in the upheaval of 2016, they have emerged as a tool for both presumptive presidential nominees to court and placate skeptical members of their parties’ activist wings.

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