This may go down as one of the more wonderful mini-bits of the election. Sources in the Trump campaign say New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie indeed got tapped to be Trump's vice president, but Trump then took it back from him. And Trump did it after then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort tricked his candidate into meeting with Pence by telling Trump his plane was broken.
“Trump cares about who’s the most loyal and who kisses his a–- the most, not who’s the most qualified and what’s the best political decision,” a source close to the campaign told the New York Post. [...]
Christie “said all the BS that Trump likes to hear, and Trump said, ‘Yeah, sure I’m giving it to you,'" [a] second source told the newspaper.
But Manafort ... oh, this is wonderful. Manafort duped him.
Then Trump's campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort, arranged for the GOP nominee to meet with Pence in Indianapolis on July 13. He then told Trump his plane was having mechanical problems so the GOP nominee had to stay in town another night.
Pence used the time to try to win the spot, while Trump's advisers warned the issues Christie would bring with the Bridgegate controversy would destroy the GOP nominee's presidential campaign.
It worked. The dumb ploy actually worked. Donald Trump picked his vice president because his own campaign manager sabotaged his flight plans to give Pence a night to make his case.
This election is amazing.