(RepublicanNews.org) – Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential choice, hosted a luncheon on Saturday, May 4th, at his Mar-a-Lago resort with a selection of prominent Republicans. Audio taken at the event has since been leaked, showing that the topic of who should be chosen as Trump’s running mate was high on the agenda.
The former president was joined by several top Republican donors as well as lawmakers eager to act as his Vice President should he win this November’s election. At one point in the event, possible candidates were encouraged to take to the stage and speak to the audience. Many of those speakers have since praised Trump in press interviews.
His guests’ enthusiasm did not go unnoticed, with Trump telling reporters the following week that he now has “15 people” acting as campaigners and hoping to impress him. He claimed that keeping the Vice President spot open for a while longer could be an “effective” campaigning tool and that he did not plan to announce his choice until just before the Republican National Convention in July.
According to the leaked audio, Trump was positive about several GOP members, and it is not yet clear who his ideal choice would be. He described South Dakota’s Gov. Kirsti Noem as somebody he “love[s]” and supports, despite recent outcry over her memoir in which she recounts killing her healthy but difficult dog twenty years ago. He praised Rep. Elise Stefanik’s intelligence, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s energy, and referred to Sen. J.D. Vance as “one of the great senators”.
He was also highly complementary about Florida’s Senator Marco Rubio, although he did acknowledge that Rubio living in Florida meant that selecting him would violate the Constitution’s 12th Amendment. The amendment prohibits the election of both a President and Vice-President from the same state.
While Trump spoke positively about several well-known Republicans, he notably missed out on Vivek Ramaswamy in his praise. Ramaswamy, Trump’s former presidential rival, was in attendance at the lunch but did not appear to make enough of an impression on his host to warrant a mention.
Copyright 2024, RepublicanNews.org
