Through a terrible twist of fate, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made history in more ways than one when he announced his vice presidential running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Twitter.
Twitter confirmed to Mashableon Friday that announcing such a pick on the platform is, in fact, a first.
SEE ALSO:8 things you really didn't want to know about vice presidential nominee Mike PenceTrump has used Twitter as his go-to platform for almost every thought, retort, CAPITAL-FILLED RANT and announcement. He plays the social media platform like Charlie Daniels plays the fiddle. Yet, Trump initially planned to reveal Pence as his pick in a Friday morning press conference. It was too important an announcement, it seemed, for a mere tweet.
Then the horror of Nice, France happened. Thursday night, a possible terrorist plowed through a crowd enjoying Bastille Day fireworks, killing roughly 80 people and injuring more than 200.
Trump showed rare restraint in his tweeted response to the attack and after declaring his support for victims, announced that his scheduled press conference and VP announcement would be postponed.
Tweet may have been deleted
It seemed like a good call at the time, though one could argue that the attack and his VP announcement are not mutually exclusive events. After all, Trump's running mate choice directly impacts those people who will be running the U.S. government next year -- the very people who will have to deal with and respond to these kinds of attacks around the world.
This is not a criticism, just an observation that while there are certainly things you do not want to tweet or do in the real world in light of horrors happening around the globe, announcing national leadership choices isn't necessarily one of them.
With that choice made, though, Trump faced a dilemma: The world was rapidly learning about his choice of Pence, even without him making a public announcement.
Pence had to officially withdraw from the race for reelection to his current office by noon Friday. Indiana law prevented him from running for both the VP job and the governorship at the same time. By missing that deadline, Pence essentially confirmed what many already believed: He is the VP choice.
In the meantime, a nightmare scenario was quickly building for GOP strategists, who had already worried publicly that Trump would announce his VP pick on Twitter. Their fear, apparently, was that Trump would go rogue and do so without warning.
However, that has seemed less likely over the past month as Trump has worked harder to court more traditional Republican support and, ever the showman, might have been looking forward to the spotlight of the Republican National Convention stage and making the announcement there next week.
Obviously the Pence scenario preempted that possibility, but there was still supposed to be a live press conference. The Twitter announcement may not have caught the world off-guard, but it did seem to leave most of his digital team flat-footed.
We got a tweet and another bit of Twitter history was made, by someone who makes a habit of making, if not history, Twitter news.
Tweet may have been deleted
Whether or not Trump had a choice, there's no getting around the diminishing effect of tweeting a U.S. presidential election running mate choice. It's unlikely Trump's opponent, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will face such a choice, but even if she does, will she make the same choice? Smart money says no, no she won't.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
TopicsDonald TrumpElections
(责任编辑：知識)
Lance Bass will be a judge in Season 2 of DanceOn's 'Dance
'How do I get rid of that annoying echo on my Zoom calls?' and more WFH help
'Candyman' director Nia DaCosta will reportedly direct 'Captain Marvel' sequel
Watch a shot
15 dogs that have no idea how to use the dog bedFighting pythons are a reminder that it's mating season in Australia
Australia is the land where tourists assume everything will try to kill you. 。"Not true!" The locals
...[详细]Steve Carell describes the 'emotional torture' of leaving 'The Office'
The Officechanged forever when Steve Carell left the show.After playing Michael Scott for seven glor
...[详细]NASA would really like it if you stared at the moon on Saturday night
Did you know that Sept. 26, 2020 is officiallythe date of the annual International Observe the Moon
...[详细]Arctic Circle fires this year smashed a grim record
Superlatives can describe 2020's fires in the Arctic Circle. To illustrate, the 2020 fires trumped e
...[详细]The view from space as Hurricane Matthew pounded the Bahamas
Hurricane Matthew blasted through the Bahamas Thursday on its way from Haiti to Florida, toppling tr
...[详细]'Contagion' hits different 6 months into the pandemic
In retrospect, I should have realized Contagionwould not be an easy watch in the middle of a pandemi
...[详细]Facebook tries to recruit more poll workers for presidential election
You might have noticed a new banner at the top of your Facebook news feed asking you, by name, to be
...[详细]8 podcasts that talk honestly about mental health
We are living through challenging times. And with many of us physically separated from family, frien
...[详细]U.S. Southwest faces 99% risk of 'megadroughts' due to climate change
The U.S. Southwest is almost guaranteed to suffer scorching, decades-long "megadroughts" if the worl
...[详细]Amazon Prime Video drops 4 very creepy new horror movie trailers
It's sort of hard to believe, but Halloween is no longer that far away.To get you in the mood for th
...[详细]#OctoberSurprise turned out to be nothing more than an LOL on Twitter
Popular wildlife cam just became a dreadful California fire cam
