President Donald Trump says he'll choose a running mate in the next few weeks and will likely unveil his pick in a major turning point in the campaign. I think I'll announce who that person is going to be during the convention. I think that's pretty normal during the convention will be an interesting period of time. Our Lisa Desjardins has been covering the Trump campaign and joins us now to talk more about this. So Lisa based on your reporting who seems to be under consideration well, this is basically a political reality show from a man who starred in a reality show and first let's start with who Trump. Is naming because he is dropping a lot of names Tim's got. He has been much better for me than he was for himself. I watched this campaign And he doesn't like talking about himself. But boy, does he talk about Trump? Doug Bergum has been incredible. And the country is lucky to have them. You could take people like Ben Carson. You could take people like Marco Rubio JD Vance. I mean, there are so many leases doing a fantastic job, Elise Stefanik there. Now, let's talk about what's really happening here. I want to look at the kind of group of names that's been most in circulation in the last month and a half 10 names. There are people who come in and out. But in the last few weeks, we know two of those Game of essentially dropped off. Carry Lake there at the bottom and Christine No. So let's focus on these eight. My reporting is that the Trump campaign has asked these eight people four paperwork to try and vet them to be potential vice presidential running mates. Now as you'll notice. Most of these are current lawmakers and I want to highlight four of them in particular. The four in the top row. North Dakota's, uh Doug Bergum Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida. Tim Scott, Senator of South Carolina, JD. Vance US, Senator. From Ohio. Now, these four my understanding is are the ones that are getting the most attention from the Trump campaign right now, But here's the thing. It's Donald Trump. He wants everyone to keep guessing, including the people who are in the mix. He likes that. That's part of the point of this so really no decision made, and that means anybody could really still be the selection. But that's where he's been focusing. How are Donald Trump and the campaign? How are they trying to arrive at this decision? What are they looking at? In particular? Well, the former president himself, says Number one, he wants someone Would be a good president. He said that in interviews, But when you talk to his team and you talk to those around him, number one after that is loyalty. No surprise the situation with Mike Pence, where Mike Pence showed up for the duly elected coming into office President Biden and rejected what President Trump wanted him to do is key in Trump's mind. He wants someone who will be loyal to him. He also wants something He's doing something that's not traditional here. He's not thinking in terms of which parts of the base Any anime, which again is part of the reason that Mike Pence was brought on with evangelicals, Trump and their campaign are not worried about the base. The one thing they are thinking about in terms of electoral strategy is someone who will have a good match up with Vice President Kamala Harris in a debate and in general, they think that she is a weaker part of the Biden Harris campaign. They want to expose that, so this is what they are thinking about. But in general, part of it is a casting aspect. He wants someone who looks good beside him and who has a name that looks good next to him. One person I talked to even said that May be a disadvantage for like at least Stefanik having a long last name. It might sound ridiculous, but these are actual considerations. What are the potential candidates doing and saying now and give us a sense of of why that might be significant? Well since early May, we've seen kind of a parade of candidates attending Trump events. There was a fundraiser at Mar a Lago in early May, where we saw Marco Rubio show up. We've seen candidates who now we know our candidates go to the trump Court cases in, uh, in New York, For example, those kinds of things have been standing out. It's an open competition, and that aspect of it in some ways is something historians say is novel here. We haven't seen this in a while. We spoke to one expert Joel Goldstein. He's an expert in the vice presidency. Who says This is raising a lot of questions for him about how this will work. One of the ideas that Walter Mondale had was that the role of the vice presidents should be, in part to talk truth to power to tell the president things that he or she didn't want to hear. And yet, if you Have a process that really encourages people to be obsequious. It really undercuts that important purpose of the vice presidency as its developed and evolved and this in a way, while this whole thing is speculation. This in a way is why we're focusing on this right now because this isn't just funny, and we know this has very great significance for the future, especially if Trump is re elected. And if you pay attention to what some of these candidates for vice president are saying, they're talking about. Loyalty to trump in ways differing with themselves in the past on very important issues, including whether the 2020 election had fraud in it or not. So I want to take us through something unusual a series of sound bites when some of these candidates were asked about what they think about our democracy and specifically about this coming election, whether they think that it will be secure or and also the past election. I think that Donald Trump will be the victory and if it's a free and fair election, Dana, I think every Republican will enthusiastically accept. Results and again I think those results will show that Donald Trump has been elected president. Will you accept the election? Results of 2024? No matter what happens, Senator No matter what happens, no, if it's an unfair election, I think it's going to be contested by Senator no matter who I think you're asking the wrong person. The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000 every single one. He still hasn't accepted the results of the election, he says. And I agree that the election was not fair that it was rigged in many ways, with Democratic states and cities changing election law and election practices up to the last minute Had you been vice president on January 6th 2021, What would you have done? I stood up for the Constitution. I believe it was all you have done. If you were a vice president, I would not have done what Mike Pence did. I don't think that was the right approach as they're being vetted behind the scenes. These are very important public signals that they are sending to trump that we need to watch. Lastly, Lisa, what's the timeline for this decision? We heard the former president say he's going to make this announcement during the convention. I mean, we're used to some really strange calendars last couple of years. This is another one. Let's look at it. What's ahead. So today? June 7th. That's where we're going to start and then let's talk about the next big event for Party. July 15th. That's the Republican convention in Milwaukee. That's 38 days. So if former president announces his nominee, then at the convention, let's take a look at what's ahead. Those two dates that you're gonna see in yellow July 23rd August 13th. Those are the potential vice presidential debates. So imagine this. Mr Trump may nominate someone or add someone to his has his running mate, and then in less than a week that person would be facing a debate with Vice President Harris. So It is a very tight timeline. And while he may have said this is normal, it is unusual. Absolutely. Lisa Desjardins. Thanks so much for walking us through this. We appreciate it. You're welcome.
