Trump Says His VP Announcement Will Be Like ‘The Apprentice.’ It’s More Like LBJ.

The Republican National Convention is already overflowing with unscripted high-stakes drama, coming mere hours after gunfire interrupted a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, injuring the former president and killing a rally-goer. It’s safe to assume that when history looks back at this week, the images of a bloodied Trump, fist held high, will overshadow what was to be the convention’s marquee moment: Trump’s reported “reality show-style reveal” of his vice presidential nominee.

“It’s like a highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice,” Trump said last week.

But, as anyone watching network TV in the 2000s can attest, the catchphrase of The Apprentice was never, “You’re hired.” Trump’s trademark on the show was dissecting contestants’ performances and juicing every moment of suspense before dismissing them. It’s standard fare for game shows, but not for vice presidents.

Yet Trump’s telegenic tactic of focusing on the losers and stringing along the winner bears a bizarre resemblance to what Lyndon B. Johnson put a field of ambitious Democrats through 60 years ago this summer. Much like Trump during this cycle, Johnson withheld his pick to the very end, stoked uncertainty and kept loyalists and opponents within the party on their toes, strengthening his position as the sole decision-maker. The eventual candidate was sure to get the message: You were one of many choices I could have made; you’d better stay loyal to me. It’s the same message Trump’s selection process implies: He doesn’t want an independent governing partner, especially after Mike Pence refused to abet his bid to overturn the 2020 election.

For much of 1964, Johnson ginned up rumors over an ever-widening array of candidates for the vacant vice presidency. The choices ranged from far-fetched to splashy to potentially historic. Sen. Abraham Ribicoff would have been the first Jewish vice president; Sen. John O. Pastore, the first Italian. Johnson was said to favor Under Secretary of Commerce Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., for obvious reasons, or a fusion ticket with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a registered Republican before entering John F. Kennedy’s cabinet.

Some of these machinations were driven by Johnson’s fear of Attorney General Robert Kennedy forcing himself onto the ticket in a convention stampede — a very real campaign RFK pursued with Democratic Party power brokers through the spring and summer of 1964. Kennedy pleaded for the vice president job in interviews with Newsweek’s Ben Bradlee and others until Johnson finally shut him down at the end of July.

In a blanket declaration clearly aimed at RFK, Johnson told reporters that no cabinet members or White House aides would be selected as vice president. LBJ’s press secretary released a long list that night of whom the president was supposedly no longer considering. Imagine the shock Budget Director Kermit Gordon must have felt when he saw his name in the newspaper the next morning.

The worst was yet to come for the man who finally got the job.

Sen. Hubert Horatio Humphrey had been at the front of the pack from the very beginning. The runner-up to JFK in the 1960 primaries, he was a Northern liberal who stood up for civil rights while Johnson wheeled-and-dealed in a Southern-powered Senate caucus. Humphrey had proven himself adept at legislating and obsequious to leadership, but despite the obviousness of the decision, Johnson soaked up every last moment of suspense.

As the Democratic National Convention began in Atlantic City in August, Johnson roamed the White House grounds loudly insisting he had not made up his mind and rattling off his desired traits in a vice president. The next day, according to campaign biographer Theodore White, LBJ had an aide call Humphrey and specifically instructed him to read the write-up of the president’s comments in the Washington Star — not the Washington Post, because Johnson felt that the Star wrote it better — to fully convey what was needed of him. Johnson wanted Humphrey to understand: There would be no public disputes with him, no lobbying for special interests, no disagreement once a decision had been made — and he would need to keep secrets for the president that no one else could know about.

Once Humphrey had completed his reading assignment, an LBJ aide called him again and said that Johnson would soon send a plane to take him and his wife from Atlantic City to see the president in Washington. At this point, White wrote, Humphrey breathed a sigh of relief: An invitation for his wife meant he was surely going to be the vice-presidential nominee.

And somehow Johnson continued to string him along.

A convention dispute and fog prevented the Humphreys from flying out that evening, and a White House aide vetoed a plan for them to drive to D.C. The next morning, LBJ’s aide in Atlantic City told Humphrey his wife was no longer invited, and he would instead be flying down with Sen. Thomas Dodd — one of the many who had been floated for the vice presidency.

In Washington, Johnson told reporters that he wanted to speak with Humphrey about the vice presidency while maybe “talking to a senator or two, a governor or two.” Johnson had made no mention of Dodd, so his sudden trip to a White House summit created a stir. Eager cameramen photographed Humphrey and Dodd departing the airport for the White House, and in doing so, Johnson extended the drama a few more hours, when news of Humphrey’s selection emerged at long last.

Not only had LBJ gotten Humphrey and senior members of the party to bow and scrape for his consideration, he literally controlled how and when Humphrey moved in those final hours before selection.

Today’s process has been just as empowering for Trump, and he, too, will likely drag it out as long as he can. The competition to please him has turned occasional skeptics like Sen. Marco Rubio, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sen. J.D. Vance into sycophants, cheering his immunity from prosecution and defending his comments about migrants “poisoning the blood” of the country.

When Johnson and Humphrey served together in the Senate in the 1950s, they came from the same Democratic caucus but starkly different camps: Johnson represented the conservatives and Dixiecrat wing; Humphrey championed the liberals and civil rights. But by making Humphrey his vice president, Johnson practically erased the Minnesotan’s identity. Any suggestion that Rubio, Vance or Burgum (or some other wild-card choice) will maintain a scintilla of independence with Trump is a fantasy. His choice will not be a partner like Walter Mondale or Al Gore or even Mike Pence. He will be Hubert Humphrey.

At least there won’t be any costume changes. Shortly after the 1964 election, Johnson brought Humphrey to his ranch, dressed him in a cowboy outfit and sat him atop a frisky horse named El Rey for a photo shoot.

It makes the “red tie brigade” look like a walk through the courthouse park.