Trump’s PT Barnum veepstakes

I don’t love popcorn but if I did I would now be ordering bulk supplies. The vying between Republican hopefuls to be Donald Trump’s running mate has in reality been going on for almost a year. Minus Chris Christie and probably Mike Pence, almost everyone who started on the Republican debate stage last August was agitating to be his number two. But in recent days the competition has taken on box office proportions.

Two of those who were assumed to be on his shortlist, South Dakota’s governor Kristi Noem, and Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have imploded in the past two weeks. Of these, Noem is by far the most memorable. I dislike Schadenfreude almost as much as popcorn. But in Noem’s case, her self-destruction has been compellingly entertaining.

Some people call it “Puppygate”; others, “The silence of the puppies”. Whatever your heading, Noem has lost the dog-owning vote. In her memoirs, which are appropriately titled No going back?, Noem confesses to shooting her recalcitrant puppy, Cricket, after it savaged a neighbour’s chickens. She also admitted to shooting a goat and some horses. All hell broke loose.

Doubtless Noem thought her disclosure would bolster her image as a tough cookie who knew how to take painful decisions. Moreover, Trump is the only president in recent memory who did not have a pet dog in the White House. He also likes talking about how people die “like a dog” — a phrase he used for Isis commanders, Iranian revolutionaries, and many others.

Noem miscalculated badly. Almost as ineptly, Noem claimed in her book that she had met North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un. Again, this was supposed to showcase her gritty credentials. She had apparently given Kim a piece of her mind. It turned out this was false. Even the conservative media has mocked Noem on that score, not least her inability to admit directly that she never met the rocket man from Pyongyang. 

Less entertainingly, yet I confess, just as satisfyingly, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s prospects have also dropped sharply in the veepstakes. She took on the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and failed. First, Johnson managed to get Trump’s blessing to pass the aid package that included $61bn for Ukraine — the biggest positive shock in a year of bleak political news. As punishment for that betrayal, Greene this week tried to oust Johnson from the speakership for being the alleged leader of what she calls the “uniparty” — Democrats and deep state Republicans.

Apparently Trump doesn’t agree. He keeps singing Johnson’s praises and has taken to snubbing Greene. Her “motion to vacate” Johnson from the job was a damp squib. MTG’s fall from Trumpian grace has been swift and humiliating. It could not have happened to a more upstanding member of the political community.

So who does that leave? A deep galaxy of characters. These include South Carolina senator Tim Scott, former presidential hopeful and Florida senator Marco Rubio, and former Trump rival Vivek Ramaswamy, the self-made businessman and cartoonish firebrand, who I have written about for Swampians before. Then there are any number of less obvious potentials, such as Doug Burgum, North Dakota governor and former presidential contender, and even Nikki Haley, who was the last one standing against Trump in the Republican primaries.

I have no insight into who Trump might choose, which has to happen before the Republican convention in Milwaukee in mid-July. I doubt Trump does either. What I do know is that whoever it is will have to pass a double test. First they must agree with Trump that the 2020 election was stolen. Second, they must — like Tim Scott, in a squeamish political talk show interview last weekend — refuse to admit the possibility that Trump could lose in November. Scott, who is the only African American on Trump’s likely shortlist, and is thus an important bellwether, repeatedly refused to say that he would accept the results of this year’s election if Joe Biden won. We can take it as read that pre-emptive 2024 denialism is the new minimum cover charge to enter the Trump audition. 

James, you have been watching all this at least as closely as I have. Do you have a hunch as to who Trump will select? What do you think their essential characteristics will be?

 Recommended reading

• On the subject of outlandish conversations, do catch a glimpse of this one between Ramaswamy and Ann Coulter, one of the Maga world’s most unapologetic white nationalists. Go to roughly the 6:30 mark to hear Coulter say she could never have voted for Ramaswamy because he’s “Indian”. She would only vote for people with Anglo-Saxon heritage and preferably “British blood”. The fact that this kind of talk is now normal on the right, and that Ramaswamy did not seem remotely offended, is a) a measure of the times, and b) of Ramaswamy’s ambition.

• My column this week, For Putin, Gaza is an endless gift, looks at how Russia’s leader has been the chief geopolitical beneficiary of the turmoil in Israel, and Biden the principal loser. Keep an eye on the triangle between Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Biden. It is one of the overlooked keys to 2024.

• Do read the New Yorker’s always astute and thoughtful Susan Glasser on whether the 2024 election is more like 2020 or 1968. “What’s already both knowable and known is that if Trump is once more defeated, he’s planning on pulling a 2020 all over again,” she writes. “On this, at least, take him at his word.”

• Also do read Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, in the FT. “It would be a mistake to think that a small group of students with connections to the Arab world drove these protests,” she writes. “What I saw was a broad representation of young people of every ethnic and religious background — passionate, intelligent and committed. Unfortunately, the actions and antisemitic comments of some — especially among those from outside our community — stirred fear and discomfort.”

James Politi responds

The Trump veepstakes are the biggest parlour game happening between Mar-a-Lago and the Manhattan courthouse these days, and I would put the three senators — Tim Scott, Marco Rubio and especially JD Vance in pole position — with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Arkansas governor and his former White House press secretary, as a dark horse if he wants a non-puppy killing woman.

But this may not be just a battle over who is Trump’s second vice-president. Since Trump can only serve for one more four-year term, it is also a fight over who his chosen political heir might be ahead of the 2028 presidential contest. Even if being Trump’s VP did not serve Mike Pence’s future presidential prospects very well, Trump may want to do more to anoint his VP as the chosen heir. Unless he only sees his children as the only true custodians of the Maga political movement. What do we think of a Trump-Trump Jr ticket? 

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In response to “Is AI about to kill what’s left of journalism?”
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