House Member 'At the Top' of Potential VP Picks for Trump in 2024 - Report
Former President Donald Trump circulated around the tables at a candlelit December dinner for members at Mar-a-Lago when he was asked about the possibility of choosing New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik as his running mate in the presidential election.
“She’s a killer,” Trump replied, nodding his head, according to an unnamed source who spoke with NBC News for an exclusive report.
Eight more people, all of them also unnamed, confirmed to NBC that the Trump campaign and “a growing group of allies” have been considering the matter.
The dinner came shortly after Stefanik had grilled university leaders from Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania about anti-Semitism on their campuses during a House hearing.
“Their answers to the question, ‘Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your college’s] rules on bullying and harassment?’ eventually resulted in two of them resigning and brought a firestorm of criticism on the schools,” NBC reported.
Adding to the speculation about Stefanik, 39, possibly being asked to run with Trump, she announced Wednesday that she would travel to New Hampshire and campaign with the former president against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Trump’s only serious competition remaining in the Republican presidential primary.
The most recent polling shows Trump ahead in the state by 12.8 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average of January polls, with Haley running behind him and DeSantis far behind in single digits.
According to former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, the representative from New York is the leading contender for the role.
“Stefanik is at the top,” he told NBC.
An unnamed “Republican campaign operative” suggested to the outlet that Trump, 77, felt like he had been burned by his former vice president, Mike Pence, which was leading him to value loyalty above other considerations in making the pick for his next running mate.
“If you’re Trump, you want someone who’s loyal above all else,” the operative told NBC. “Particularly because he sees Mike Pence as having made a fatal sin.”
Stephanik worked on Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, NBC reported, but since then has “shifted to the right” and is considered one of the former president’s most important allies in the House of Representatives.
“She’s come a long way, and now she’s really, really with us,” Trump said in the spring of 2022, according to another unnamed source whom NBC described as familiar with his comments. “She was kind of with us before, but she’s really with us now.”
The Trump campaign would not comment to NBC regarding the speculation about Stefanik.
For her part, Stefanik said she was “honored to call [Trump] a friend,” but had no comment about possibly running on the 2024 ticket when asked by NBC.
“I’m not going to get into any of my conversations with President Trump,” she told the outlet. “I’m honored to call him a friend.
“I’m proud to be the first member of Congress to have endorsed his re-election, and he had a huge win in Iowa,” she added. “So we’re very excited about that.”
She did, however, tell NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month that she’d be “honored to serve in any capacity in a Trump administration.”
In fact, she said it twice in the span of about a minute:
“I’m proud to be a supporter of President Trump,” she said with a smile, “and he’s going to win this November.”
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