INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nomination virtually in hand, is signaling a new phase of his outsider campaign, searching for a running mate who could help him govern and reaching out to one-time competitors in an effort to heal the fractured Republican Party.
On that, though, there are exceptions.
“I am confident I can unite much of” the GOP Trump said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today Show, as several prominent Republicans said they’d prefer Democrat Hillary Clinton over the New York billionaire. In a shot at his critics, Trump added: “Those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we served two terms. Honestly, there are some people I really don’t want.”
His comments on several networks came a few hours after Trump, once dismissed as a fringe contender, became all-but certainly the leader of the Republican Party into the fall campaign against Clinton. The former secretary of state suffered a defeat Tuesday in Indiana to her rival, Bernie Sanders, but holds a definitive lead in Democratic delegates who will decide the Democratic nomination.