Things are heating up in the realm of vice-presidential selection, and if a new report from the Associated Press proves to be correct, President Donald Trump and his team have narrowed the field of potential candidates down to a slim handful of Republican allies.
Per their report, the president’s team has whittled the slate of potential VP candidates down to the following players:
- Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio,
- Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.,
- Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.,
- Gov. Doug Burgum, R-N.D.,
- Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.,
- And former Trump cabinet member and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson.
The AP stated that these select few have received “vetting paperwork” and cited inside sources familiar with the matter.
Fox News host Jesse Watters noted this week that President Donald Trump will announce his vice-presidential pick closer to the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled for mid-July.
In 2016, Trump announced his running mate in June before the convention. The AP report highlighted the campaign’s reminder that the current VP “list is fluid and evolving and that the decision will be up to him [Trump].”
The weight of choosing a running mate is an important one, and former Trump administration member Kash Patel, who served as the former Chief of Staff for the Acting Secretary of Defense, recently had some words of advice for the president.
Per RSBN, he told Tim Pool, “Don’t pick someone who’s going to be auditioning to be POTUS in four years.’ And there are folks like that out there, there are the Ben Carson types out there that I think you can go to that are maybe a little quieter and not as sexy of a pick.”
He also stated that he told the president that what he didn’t “want is a repeat Mike Pence.”
Patel added, “What I don’t want is someone who is running your administration for intel, DoD, counter terrorism, and all this stuff to get an order from you to go back into your White House to fight 7,000 people and slow down your order.”
