Former President Donald Trump, his entourage, and other outside spectators have turned their attention to the next steps he needs to take in order to get to the GOP convention in Milwaukee in July, after winning the nomination in all but name. steps such as expanding his benefactor awareness and expanding his fundraising operations in order to minimize President Joe Biden’s substantial cash advantage, setting up field offices and other campaign infrastructure in battleground states, appealing to Republicans who support Trump’s rivals in the primaries, and yet continuing to make for his four legal trials, the first of which started on April 15 in Manhattan.  ,
The biggest change Trump did make before the agreement will become naming his running mate, though. In the last few weeks, speculation about who the again and potential future leader will choose has subsequently risen significantly. Many names have been bruited about, from the visible to the impossible, from popular to obscure, from large states and little ones, from those in high office to those in none. Blink and you’ll find almost all of them occupying the Naval Observatory. Any of them, that is, with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, the original Democratic congressman from Hawaii, who is by far the worst of the candidates Trump is presumably considering for vice president.  ,
Not that Trump has ever been turned down by the possibility of a rent blowing up in his face. And thus Gabbard, by all transactions, is in contention for the Republican Party’s No. 2 area. Trump has said thus publicly and privately. Instead of downplaying the idea, Gabbard said,” All of those people are good,” when Fox News ‘ Laura Ingraham mentioned him in a group of potential vice presidents during a February interview of Trump. They’re all solid” . ,
In a recent New York Times article, Trump “made evident to advisers that she should be on his list of options,” a roster that usually is dominated by more conventional choices, any of whom would be a less bizarre option even for someone as unorthodox as the 45th president.  ,
It contains, for example, several of Trump’s rivals for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND ) is a reliably red state that is both small and in no danger of falling to Biden, and he barely made a noise in the primary. But he’s wealthy, can fundraise, would n’t overshadow Trump, and is unlikely to stand in the way of Trump’s anointed MAGA successor should Trump win. Nikki Haley also comes from a small and reliably red state, South Carolina. Republicans who were never Trump and who were dissatisfied with her for being the last woman to contest the primary Like Burgum, she’d help Trump on the cash front. As a woman and minority, her demographic advantages are evident. As the race progressed, her standing among Republicans fell, and the base’s dislike of her as the avatar of the Bush-Client-Rombian GOP might lead to a revolt if Trump were to choose her. Not to mention that she vehemently opposed being vice president.  ,
Both Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kristi Noem are female governors. Noem has a plus in her looks, Sanders in her tenure as White House press secretary. Both represent reliably red states ( South Dakota and Arkansas, respectively ) that are small and add nothing to Trump’s electoral coalition. Young, Hispanic, and telegenic, Sen. Marco Rubio ( R- FL ) was once seen as the future of the GOP. He has suddenly found himself in the running for the Senate seat despite flailing out in the 2016 primary. The only problem? Rubio, like Trump, is from Florida, and the Constitution bars electors from voting for a president and vice president from the same state. If Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who has since been pitied before a vote was cast, has reinvented himself as one of Trump’s most steadfast surrogates, that would not be a problem. He’s black and donors love him, two marks in his favor. But like Haley, he hails from South Carolina, a state that counts for little in Trump’s electoral calculus.  ,
Other prospects have the same types of debits and credits. Sen. J. D. Vance ( R- OH), maybe the most MAGA figure being contemplated, is in Trump’s own words a “fighter”. However, Ohio is consistently red these days, and since Vance is only in his first year as president, Trump may be reluctant to choose someone to take his place as leader of the movement as well as the nation. Trump praised Katie Britt, but her underappreciated performance in the GOP’s State of the Union address last month suggested the Alabama senator’s first-term senator is n’t ready for prime time. Rep. Elise Stefanik ( R- NY), the No. 3 Republican in the House, is one of Trump’s most ardent defenders in Congress. That she’s a woman is a bonus. But she’s only a congresswoman, and it’s unlikely she’d put Trump’s former home state of New York in play.  ,
These figures and others who are not mentioned have both their advantages and disadvantages. For some, perhaps most, those strengths are vastly outweighed by the weaknesses. But they do have them. Gabbard, on the other hand, scarcely has any strengths at all. Trump would be choosing someone who has no upside and only has the downside in choosing her.  ,
For one thing, Gabbard, though now an independent, spent her entire two- decade career in elective office as a Democrat, beginning when she was elected to the Hawaii House of Representatives at just 21. In 2016, she resigned from her position as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and backed Sen. Bernie Sanders ( I- Vermont ). After dropping out of the 2020 presidential race, she endorsed Biden. She is a proponent of” Medicare for All” and free college tuition. This is hardly the record one would anticipate from someone running for president of the GOP.
And eying it she is, by her own admission. Asked in March if she’d be amenable to being Trump’s vice president, Gabbard conceded,” I would be open to that”. She made the decision to reject independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s offer to be his running mate largely due to the possibility that she was on Trump’s short list. Gabbard, a source told NBC News, only turned down Kennedy because she “is convinced that Trump is going to pick her” . ,
Gabbard’s personal background would also likely become a campaign problem. She was raised in a Hare Krishna movement offshoot, which some have called a cult and who have accused her of being anti-gay and anti-Islam. Gambard has since apologized for her former employment with a company that promoted conversion therapy. Some religious and social conservatives may find it off-putting that she has been a practicing Hindu for many years.  ,
While some Republicans may find Gabbard’s religion offensive, even more, especially those who favor a robust, interventionist foreign policy, will balk at her skepticism of American power and dalliances with hostile powers. Meeting with Bashar Assad in 2017 drew bipartisan ire, which was seen as a confirmation of the Syrian dictator’s bloody civil war. Gabbard has also taken a decidedly soft stance toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, chastising Biden and Western leaders for being insufficiently solicitous of Russia’s “legitimate” security concerns about Ukraine’s possible accession to NATO. As disgraceful as these stances may be in the GOP’s old guard, they are what has caused her to fall under the Tucker Carlson wing, the former Fox News host who has a vehement admiration for Gabbard in large part because of her views on international relations.  ,
There is, moreover, a clear appetite for those views within the party. Trump has gotten them. The Washington Post reported in February that the former president contacted Gabbard for advice on “foreign policy and how the Defense Department should be run in a second Trump term.” This thought-provoking discussion is the reason Trump insiders think a national security post is a much better place for the Iraq War veteran to land in a second Trump administration than the vice presidency, according to NBC News.  ,
There are practical issues that might give Trump pause in addition to the ideological and philosophical considerations that limit Gabbard’s appeal to Republican voters. One of Trump’s main criteria for choosing a running mate is the ability to raise money. Unlike such contenders as Vance, Stefanik, Burgum, Scott, and Rubio, Gabbard has no constituency in the GOP donor class. In fact, her positions are more likely to avert the plutocrats who turned to Haley in the ludicrous hope that she would overthrow Trump and restore the Republican Party before 2015 election. According to Michael Bender of the New York Times,” Mr. Trump has questioned several people about the fundraising prowess of potential running mates.” Gabbard is undoubtedly at the bottom of the list when it comes to opening Republican donor wallets and checkbooks.  ,
The biggest flaw in Gabbard from Trump’s point of view is that she wastes one of his greatest advantages: voter skepticism about whether a vote for Kamala Harris is actually a vote for Biden. The two presidential nominees who have been in office the longest are Trump and Biden. Given this reality, their understudies may be a factor in 2024 in a way they have n’t in decades.  ,
Harris, the incumbent, is deeply unpopular. Her ratings are worse than Biden’s. She is an object of contempt and ridicule whose most notable accomplishment to date was a series of unsuccessful reinventions, each one less successful than the other, from her irritating laugh to her habit of tossing word salad whenever she opens her mouth.  ,
Yet despite her myriad flaws, Harris is a former state attorney general and U. S. senator — i. e., someone who’s been elected statewide multiple times — and not just in any state but in California, the largest state in the union. As vice president, she’s also been on a winning national ticket. Despite Harris ‘ numerous detractors on the right, Gabbard’s supporters may not want to hear it, but she is a more trustworthy potential president than Gabbard.  ,
Former Vice President Mike Pence strengthened Trump’s standing within the party and wooed skept Republicans. Gambard appears to have the opposite effect. There is good reason to believe that she would be much less appealing to average Republicans, whose votes are more important to Trump because there are much more of them, compared to the Republican Party, which makes up the majority of its size.  ,
Gabbard has attempted to make herself more appealing to Republicans in recent years, including by leaving the Democratic Party for an independent, speaking at CPAC, and even guest hosting on Carlson’s Fox News show before the network fired him. However, less unpalatable is not the same as more enjoyable.  ,
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Trump is looking for a running partner with many qualities. But as the Washington Post put it,” More than anything, he wants someone who can help him win”. For a variety of reasons, including her unusual upbringing and her decades-long career as a Democratic office holder, as well as her status as the favorite of a disreputable fringe of the conservative movement, Tulsi Gabbard is not Tulsi Gabbard.  ,
Or, to put it another way, Gabbard would make a compelling vice president choice. Intersting in the same way a Brit might respond to” that’s interesting” when someone declares their desire to trade worldly goods for communal living. Which is to say, he or she would have to be completely savage to do it.  ,
Varad Mehta is a writer and historian. He resides in the Philadelphia region. Find him on X: @varadmehta.
