It’s May – What better time to start thinking about potential Trump Veeps

Commentary

I really hadn’t given too much thought about whom Donald Trump, the “presumptive” GOP candidate for president will pick for his VP.

(Don’t you think it’s time for the media to stop using “presumptive” when they refer to Trump’s candidacy? Presumptive means, “based on probability.” I mean, Lindsay Graham, former virulent Trump-hater said the other day he’d “absolutely still support Trump even if he’s convicted of felonies” between now and the 2024 presidential election in November. Does that suggest that every time I reference the South Carolina senator I have to write “presumptive brown-noser Lindsay Graham?”)

But I digress.

In fact I hadn’t given it any thought at all until an article from the Daily Beast crossed my desk, Kristi Noem Killed Her Dog—and Committed ‘Political Suicide’

Frankly, I hadn’t even paid attention to Kristi Noem’s “dogicide” until I remembered that she was high up on Trump’s VP list.

Kristi Noem, the farm girl, former beauty queen and presumptive idiot, is also governor of South Dakota – or is it North Dakota. Wait, which Dakota is the setting for “Fargo?” Wait, why are there two Dakotas? And why are there two Virginias? Or two Carolinas? Just so there’ll be more GOP senators? If there’s a better reason for District of Columbia’s statehood (or Puerto Rico’s for that matter) please let me know via a comment to this post an email to me directly (tedblock@around-the-block.com).

(I’m going to have to pause now. After actually looking at the photo that accompanies this story and seeing the choices for a potential second in line to a 77 year old president, I became slightly nauseous.)

I’m back. Thank goodness for Pepto-Bismol. I hadn’t broken out the pink stuff since I went to see “Barbie.”

Let me preface my analysis:

1. This will not be an exhaustive list as time, space and logic suggests that most of the many potential choices mentioned in the many news sources I’ve accessed are not real contenders. As an example, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota is mentioned several times. Really? Really! I guess if we have to have two Dakotas, we have to have two Dakota entries. But, North Dakota? Burgum doesn’t even have “Fargo” to hang his hat on. (I looked it up during my short sick leave.)
2. Why May? Given the names on the list, what better time to explore the options than May which, as Guenvere so presciently sings in Camelot:

You’ve got to hand it to Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist half of Camelot’s Lerner & Lowe. Although he died in 1986, Lerner, Merlin-like, was able to predict what Reagan’s party would look like in May 2024: “everyone goes blissfully astray”; “tons of wicked thoughts”; “a libelous display”; “divine mistakes” – remember, Lerner hadn’t heard of James Comer (Hunter Biden’s nemesis), jacket-less Jim Jordan or Speaker Mike Johnson (full disclosure: no one had heard of Mike Johnson in 2023!). Prescient understates Lerner’s vision.

Enough digression. On to the analysis.

Kristi Noem

What better person to start with than Kristi Noem. At one time considered a top five choice, Noem’s revelations in a forthcoming memoir that she SHOT HER DOG(!) seems to have done her in (not to mention the dog, Cricket). As one Trumpworld source told the Daily Beast, “Haven’t seen a more public suicide than Jim Jones at Jonestown.” Or, as a GOP strategist opined, “Confirming it yourself, and doing so in a book — this wasn’t a slip of the tongue — it shows kind of a string of bad judgment along the way.”

As Trump would’ve said on his hideous reality show, The Apprentice, “You’re fired.” Unless, since this is Trumpworld, you can never say never. Remember, in the run up to the 2016 election, Trump did infamously say he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.” I guess Lindsay Graham remembers.

Marco Rubio

*(At $1 a copy, I think Rubio’s fund raising prowess might be a concern to the Trump team.)

Marco Rubio? The man Trump dubbed “Little Marco?” The same Little Marco who attacked Trump for being a fake conservative, a con man, and a mogul whose only true art was not that of the deal but that of the bankruptcy? The Marco Rubio who many people think is the current front-runner but whom the compiler of the rogues gallery photo at the beginning of this story inexplicably left out? The same Marco Rubio who, defending himself against Trump’s epithet, said, “He’s always calling me ‘Little Marco’, I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s like 6’2’’, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who’s 5’2’’. Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands?” Yes, Marco, we know what they say.

A potential hitch in a Rubio vice-presidential candidacy is that the Constitution prohibits electors from voting for both a president and VP from their home state, so either Trump or Rubio would have to move. The Bulwark reported that Trump has no interest in changing his state of residence to accommodate a VP pick, but Rubio is up for it. Of course, Rubio has shown he’ll do anything to get ahead. As I wrote in an Around the Block-News with a Twist* story during the 2016 GOP primaries, “In a clear demonstration that he will pander to almost any group in order to secure the Republican presidential nomination, Florida senator Marco Rubio said today that while he is officially a Roman Catholic, he and his family also attend Evangelical services and, that when he was younger, he was a Mormon. Perhaps going forward we’ll give him Around the Block’s own epithet – “Obsequious Marco.”

(*If you access the Rubio story from 2016, remember: any post I label as “News with a Twist” is twisted news, otherwise know as satire)

Tim Scott

Scott, South Carolina’s junior U.S. Senator, is often described by GOP operatives as a “sunny” and “optimistic” guy – a trait that some campaign observers suggest would be a great counter-balance to Trump’s vision of “American carnage. Of course, Mike Pence, the ultra pious, ultra conservative, born-again Christian was also the polar opposite of the irreligious, faithless Trump. How did that work out?*

*(Does Trump’s inaction when his January 6 insurrectionists were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” ring a bell?)

Working for Scott is his race; Scott, as the above image clearly shows, is black. I guess that suggests he’s now one of “Trump’s African-Americans.”* Working against him is his inconsistent support of Trump. Scott voted to certify Biden’s 2020 win, still thinks Mike Pence “did the right thing” on January 6, and dared to challenge Trump in the 2024 race. But he may have erased any ill will when he endorsed Trump ahead of the New Hampshire primary, despite the fact that Trump’s opponent, Nikki Haley, help to launch Scott’s Senate career when she was South Carolina governor. When Trump highlighted this awkward fact during his primary-night victory speech, Scott delivered some grade-A groveling, telling Trump he doesn’t hate anyone, “I just love you!” Any comment on the deeper meaning of “I just love you” will get me into “political correctness” trouble.

*At at 2016 campaign rally in Redding, California Trump singled out a black man in the crowd and said, “Oh, look at my African-American over here. Look at him. Are you the greatest? Do you know what I’m talking about

Elise Stefanik

Stefanik, a Republican from upstate New York, is the fourth-ranking member in House GOP leadership, As a 39-year old woman, GOP operatives argue that she might be a counterweight to reelecting a 77-year-old man who was found liable for sexual abuse and repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct. (I’m old enough to remember that vice-presidential selections were made to balance a ticket geographically. Oh, how times have changed.)

In 2016, Stefanik harshly criticized Trump for his incendiary rhetoric and policy views, saying he “has been insulting to women.” But after she started rising in the GOP leadership, she morphed into a MAGA cheerleader, appearing so desperate to be Trump’s running mate that it appears that she’ll say anything to support him – from bemoaning the plight of the J6 “hostages” to blaming the media for the jury’s verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. Aside from the fact that she doesn’t appear to be Trump’s type, as a white woman of Italian and Czech heritage, some of her supporters are concerned that the ever mercurial Trump, who’s described her positively as a “killer,” might consider the last name “Stefanik” “too ethnic.” (Wait, isn’t Melania’s Slovenian name, “Melanija Knavs”? As Larry David might say, “Pretty, pretty, pretty ethnic.” Or, as the late, great, Emily Litella would’ve said, “Never mind!”)

The Rest of Them

The rest of the potential names being considered range, not from the “sublime to the ridiculous” but from the “ridiculous” to the “ridiculouser” (is that even a word?). So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the other most frequently mentioned prospects:

The aforementioned North Dakota governor Doug Burgum; Ohio senator J.D. Vance; former Democratic representative and 2020 presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard; former 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy; Texas governor Greg Abbott; former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson;  Florida congressman Byron Donalds; Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Alabama senator Katie Britt; Arizona senate candidate Kari Lake; and, in the “I kid you not category, Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene; Florida governor Ron DeSantis; and, according my sources, Melania’s favorite, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. No really, I kid you not!

Wait, what? No Selena Meyer, the greatest VEEP of all time? Where is that famous GOP sense of humor when we need it? Mitch? Anyone?