Team Make America Great Again is done with auditions for its next member.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was host to a rally Tuesday in Westfield, Indiana, finishing a series of rallies around the nation before the Republican National Convention next week. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, one of Trump’s potential choices for vice president, was present.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Pence are the lead contenders for Trump’s vice presidential choices. Trump has rallied with each of them during the last week.
A spokesperson for the Pence campaign said Tuesday prior to the rally Pence was focused on his gubernatorial reelection, and the position had not been offered to or accepted by Pence.
If Trump wants Pence to be his running mate, he must decide so by Friday. Pence must drop out of the governor’s race in order to have his name alongside Trump. Otherwise, he will remain on the ballot for re-election.
Pence introduced Trump at Tuesday’s event, describing him as a fighter and the outsider like former president Ronald Reagan.
“We are ready for a fighter and a patriot to be in the White House,” Pence said in his hasty introduction to Trump’s speech.
Pence is close in the governor’s race polls to Democratic candidate John Gregg. The latest poll was released in May by Bellwether research showed Pence slightly ahead of Gregg 40 to 35 percent.
Pence’s benefits to Trump as a running mate would be to bring in evangelical Republicans, a demographic Trump is unpopular with.
Trump started his speech with saying he thought Pence was doing a good job as governor and thanking Indiana for being the primary election that made Trump the presumptive nominee.
Trump has recently laid out his veteran’s affairs policy to increase funding for post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injury and suicide prevention and treatment.
He also stressed safety for police officers following the shooting in Dallas last Saturday that killed five officers and injured six, as well as sympathy to Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, who were shot by police officers last week.
“We have to figure out what is going on,” Trump said. “Was it training? Was it something else? It could be something else. We have to take care of everybody.”
He also began to campaign on Bernie Sanders’s recent endorsement of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by attempting to sway Sanders’s campaign supporters to Trump’s side.
“The thing Bernie Sanders and I have in common is that we both care about trade,” Trump said.
Trump also criticized the Department of Justice’s choice to not indict Clinton on the use of a private server for her emails sent during her tenure as secretary of state. He said avoiding indictment was her “greatest success to date.”
Trump will attend fundraisers in the days leading up to the Republican convention from July 18-21 in Cleveland, Ohio.
