Donald Trump Hints At Who His Running Mate Might Be
A few days before the debate on June 27th, NBC News asked if he's landed on anyone for his vice presidential pick, to which he responded, "In my mind, yeah." He also said that his pick will "most likely" be at the debate. "They'll be there. I think we have a lot of people coming." Unfortunately, the debate did not shed anymore light on who his running mat may be.
Trump also noted that "nobody knows" who his choice is yet, but we can make some pretty educated guesses. It seems like it's down to Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Se. JD Vance of Ohio, and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. Let's take a look into who the next Vice President could be.
Marco Rubio
Marco Rubio has been a Senator representing the state of Florida since 2011. He attempted to run against Donald Trump for president in 2016, but ended up dropping out and endorsing him. However, Rubio was in fact anti-Trump at one point, calling him "reckless and dangerous" and warned that he thought he would "do damage to America." He also called supporting for Donald Trump "a trap." We're wondering if he somehow fell into this trap he was worried about...
Doug Burgum
Doug Burgum has been the Governor of North Dakota since 2016. He actually worked in software for a while, growing Great Plains into a successful software company and selling it to Microsoft in 2001 for over a billion dollars. He attempted to run for president this year, but ended his campaign in December 2023 and joined the Trump campaign, advising on the energy policy.
However, Burgum can't claim innocence either. Though he didn't necessarily bad-mouth the former president, he told NBC's Chuck Todd just last year that he wouldn't want to get into business with Trump. Todd asked him, "You just wouldn't do business with him?" and Burgum responded, "No, I wouldn't." You can't really get more in business with Trump than being his Vice President!
JD Vance
JD Vance is the junior US Senator representing Ohio for the Republican party. He's also a venture capitalist and an author, having written Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir about growing up in a middle class family in Appalachia.
He's also thrown some shade at Trump, saying in 2016 during an interview with Charlie Rose, "I'm a Never Trump guy. I never liked him." Old tweets from 2016 also show him writing, "My god what an idiot," referring to Trump. Never say never, apparently.