Trump’s “Been Very Clear” His VP Choice Will Be His MAGA Successor and the Next GOP Standard Bearer

As usual, there are two distinctly different narratives running side by side in Trump world, one reality based and one fantasy based. The lesson that the GOP is teaching us these days is that if you don’t have a good reality, don’t worry and don’t try to create one. Just dream up a good fantasy and pretend that it’s real and the rest of the world will cosign on your fantasy and adopt it. At least that is the Republican party’s hope and, in point of fact, their only chance for survival.

Donald Trump is planning a dramatic revelation of his choice for vice president. He’ll announce the person at the GOP convention, which starts July 15. CNN quotes one senior Trump advisor as saying,“Their standing really depends on the day, who he speaks with and who he sees on TV.” In other words, Trump probably doesn’t know either at this point. Maybe he’ll flip a coin. But one comment here is very interesting: “The president’s been very clear about the primary focus of his choice being a person that he believes would have a great eight years of service after his next four year term,” the adviser added. So this annointed VP is going to carry the Trump benediction to inherit MAGA and be the next Republican president — and this is assuming that Trump decides to leave after four years of office and there’s no guarantee of that? I guess we might as well play along. That’s what you do with games, right?

At a dinner in New York City following his felony conviction, Trump canvassed some two dozen Wall Street financiers and high-dollar donors to get their views on who he should pick, according to two attendees.

As he went one-by-one around the rectangular table, no clear consensus emerged. Trump scowled when one attendee suggested Trump pick his onetime Cabinet member and recent primary challenger, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The crowd was perplexed when another suggested a write-in candidate with no name recognition from academia.

Vance and Burgum, according to attendees, received a few mentions. And at least two attendees supported Scott.

Rubio received the most votes in the informal straw poll, with many backers citing a key reason: The 53-year-old’s ability to assume the office of the presidency if something were to happen to their 78-year-old nominee. In Rubio, they said, Trump would also get a seasoned lawmaker with the ability to bolster the former president’s Latino support — especially in Nevada, where the senator once lived — and provide his administration a bit of polish.

And we are given to know from this article that Little Marco is the preferred candidate of Kellyanne Conway and she was responsible for putting Mike Pence on the ticket in 2016, so her views carry a lot of weight.

Conway and Trump have met regularly over dinners on the patio at Mar-a-Lago over the past year, conversations in which Conway has made her case for Rubio to be considered a top contender, multiple sources familiar with the talks said.

Hannity did not respond to a request for comment. Though Conway declined to affirm her preference for Rubio, she told CNN that Trump should pick someone “who can help him win, help him govern, who can be ready on day one.”

She has also taken her arguments more public. For months, Conway has been outwardly arguing for Trump to consider a running mate who could help him make gains with non-White voters. In an April interview with The Washington Post, she said, “if he has a Marco Rubio or a Byron Donalds, a Ben Carson, certainly a Tim Scott on the ticket, that could obviously help in what is already happening, which is a migration away from the Democratic Party by some of its core constituents over to President Trump in some of the major polls.”

Conway also mentioned Rubio three times in a February op-ed for The New York Times pontificating on Trump’s selection process. She namechecked Donalds and Scott in that piece as well. Conway has also privately told Trump and other members of his inner circle that she thinks Scott would make a good VP, but those close to Trump argue she touts Rubio more frequently.

Let’s go down the list here one by one: Ben Carson would be a suicidal choice. Carson was always the butt of jokes for one thing or another, whether it was leaving a reporter standing in the street during an interview, while he ran down the same street to check on his luggage, or him making ridiculous comments like, “poverty is a state of mind.” It won’t be Carson.

I can’t see Byron Donalds getting the gig. He’s too new in politics and he brings nothing to the table other than an angry Black man spouting MAGA points. That’s not as much of a selling point as some people might think. Although the debate between Donalds and Kamala Harris would be one for the ages. That I would pay big money to see, like a Pay Per View boxing match.

Same with Tim Scott. Scott has no magical ability to deliver Black voters, beyond his own dreams. Scott is merely that rarity, a Black Republican, but he has not distinguished himself in the Senate the same way that Black Democrats like Cory Booker, Kamala Harris or Raphael Warnock have. He’s basically a token and a figurehead, “Cotton to Congress in three generations,” and I don’t think he’s got the weight of Black America behind him.

So I guess that brings us down to Marco Rubio. And yes, there is the issue of both Trump and Rubio being from Florida and the Constitution says you can’t have a president and VP from the same state. We saw this with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney back in the day and then Cheney went to Wyoming. Is that where Rubio will suddenly buy a ranch? Or, since he’s lived in Nevada before, will he head there? I suppose that’s a possibility. Nevada is a swing state, God knows Wyoming is not.

Just for the record, J.D. Vance is the preferred candidate of Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and none other than Donald Trump, Jr. And Rupert Murdoch wants to see Doug Burgum get the part, according to CNN. Sean Hannity is also pushing for Marco Rubio, so he may indeed be the golden boy. If anybody is pushing for Elise Stefanik, it wasn’t in this article.

Personally, I’m in agreement with the anonymous Trump advisor, it all depends on who he’s seen or talked to that day, or the opinion of the last person he had a conversation with. Bingo is a more analytical method of choosing somebody than whatever method Trump will employ to pick his second in command. And bear in mind, we are to believe that whomever he does choose, Rubio for example, that’s the next GOP standard bearer and inheritor of the MAGAverse.

And if you believe that, we seriously need to get together and do some bridge shopping.

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