Being a media master, Donald Trump says he has a running mate lined up but hasn’t dropped the name. During a town hall event with Fox News, Trump essentially said the VP search was over. Like a television show, he’s waiting to unveil the winner. Who could it be? Nikki Haley was floated as an idea but met with an intense backlash from the base.
There’s a host of names being tossed around, like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). The problem with Mr. Donalds is that he would have to nix any re-election bid to his House seat if picked. Noem caved on trans athletes, but Stefanik has supposedly risen to the top of the list. Trump considers her a “killer” choice who has been steadfastly loyal (via NBC News):
During a candlelit dinner with Mar-a-Lago members in late December, former President Donald Trump walked around the table as the conversation turned to one of the biggest decisions he’d have to make should he become the Republican nominee: Whom should he pick to be his running mate?
That’s when Rep. Elise Stefanik, the hard-charging upstate New York Republican, came up, according to a person at the dinner table. Attendees around Trump raved about her viral moment just weeks before, when she grilled three university presidents at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus.
At the thought of Stefanik as a possible choice for vice president, Trump nodded approvingly.
“She’s a killer,” Trump said, according to the person at the event.
Ever since then, Trump and a growing group of allies have started to look more closely at Stefanik as a running mate, according to eight people familiar with the matter, including people in Trump’s orbit, Stefanik fundraising bundlers and former Trump administration officials.
At the time, the 39-year-old congresswoman was at the crest of a wave of national publicity after taking on the top leaders of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their answers to the question, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your college’s] rules on bullying and harassment?” eventually resulted in two of them resigning and brought a firestorm of criticism on the schools.
But Stefanik was on Trump’s radar long before that hearing, because she possesses one of the key attributes he’s looking for in a 2024 running mate: loyalty. That, mixed with her ability to drive the news on key issues, may be an irresistible mix for a vice presidential pick.
“Stefanik is at the top,” said Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s chief strategist in the White House and the architect of his 2016 campaign strategy.
The lengthy article noted how Stefanik is regarded as one of the former president’s top allies, how she’d been on his radar before thrashing three college presidents over their refusal to condemn calls for Jewish genocide, and how she reportedly goes above and beyond behind the scenes to help her friends when asked. She’s also become a formidable fundraiser, a department where Team Trump might need a bit more juice if they’re going to cover the monstrous legal bills from the various trials the former president is facing this year.
It's interesting, but I’ll focus on the VP selection drama later. Trump still hasn’t secured the delegates to win the 2024 nomination yet.