Pence’s woes haven’t deterred Trump’s potential opponents

CNN
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Being President Donald Trump’s vice president hasn’t turned out well for Mike Pence, but his painful break with the former president over unconstitutional claims doesn’t seem to have scared off candidates hoping to succeed him.

The selection of a new No. 2 by the Republican front-runners is expected to culminate in a dramatic announcement at the Republican National Convention a month from now, likely staged to boost television ratings.

So far, the shortlist of candidates has included Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rep. Byron Donald of Florida and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson.

Trump has broken all the conventions of running for president and serving in the Oval Office, including putting potential running mates through a televised audition process. The old-fashioned approach of pretending not to be interested in the presidency in order to maximize a candidate’s chances of getting it is the polar opposite of what Trump does.

Candidates hoping to catch Trump’s eye have gone on television, presumably knowing he is watching, peppering the air with compliments, talking up his possible victory, promoting conspiracy theories about voter fraud and decrying his conviction. Some have made it clear they will not do what Pence did on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress concluded it had no power to change the results of the 2020 election.

Their near-total adoption of Trump’s mantra suggests the experience of the last Republican vice president — who was hounded by the Trump mob that stormed the Capitol with chants of “hang Mike Pence” — hasn’t given them much hesitation. This is despite the fact that history suggests that at some point in their potential mission, President-elect Trump may ask them to do something that tests their conscience, the law or the Constitution.

The allure of a vice presidential candidate may reflect Trump’s allure and the euphoria of being a key figure in the “Make America Great Again” movement. For ambitious people, whether they’re budding politicians or people who’ve always dreamed of being president but never got the chance, the vice presidency can be an attractive proposition. The vice presidency comes with a lot of humiliation, always living in the boss’s shadow, taking overseas trips you don’t want to take, and no formal duties other than being a constitutional safety net in case the president dies. But there is growing confidence among Republicans this year (evident in their bullish public statements) that the presidency is up for grabs, and Trump’s nomination is a popular vote. And the tragic thing is that he could be in the presidency alongside his commander in chief, who will be 82 at the end of his term.

In many ways, up until the final two weeks of his term, Pence was laying the template for souring his relationship with the president and undermining his post-White House political career: He was supremely loyal to Trump, even to a former president who had mishandled a once-in-a-century pandemic, a loyalty that sometimes manifested itself in tearful adoration.

Trump may not have thought about what will happen to the MAGA movement after he leaves politics, but a second-term vice president could position himself to be his political successor — a particularly attractive proposition for someone like Vance, 39, a fierce Trump critic turned MAGA disciple.

The first-term senator isn’t afraid to tout his credentials. In a surprisingly candid comment on Fox News on Monday, he said, “If Trump answers the phone, the first thing I’ll have to think about is not whether I can be vice president, but whether I can ultimately be the president. If he asks me, I’ll think about it, but I think the answer is yes.”

Vance, an Ohio Republican, said he had not been asked about the job by Trump but made it clear in an interview with CNN’s Caitlin Collins in May that he was not discouraged by what happened to Pence after Trump publicly asked him to use his powers as vice president to oversee the counting of electoral votes to invalidate President Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021. “I highly doubt that Mike Pence’s life was ever in danger,” Vance said.

Vance also made it clear to Trump that he did not adopt Pence’s interpretation of constitutional limits on the vice presidential power. “If I were vice president, I would have told Pennsylvania, Georgia and many other states that they needed to have multiple electoral votes and the United States Congress would contest from there,” he told ABC News in February. “Many people, including myself, believe there were many problems with the 2020 election, but that’s the right response. I believe that’s what should have been done.” There is no constitutional justification for such a course of action.

CNN reported earlier this month that Vance, along with Rubio and Burgum, were among the vice presidential candidates sent vetting materials by the Trump campaign.

Burgum has taken a classic approach, turning a failed presidential campaign into a running mate. In some ways, he resembles Pence, the deeply conservative governor of Indiana. Burgum, the North Dakota governor, also displays the kind of unquestioning loyalty that Trump values. Burgum is a wealthy, self-made businessman, the type of person Trump has spent his life with in boardrooms and golf clubs. And he’s not flashy enough to steal the headlines from the former and would-be president.

Burgum has said he believes Biden won the 2020 election but has expressed concerns about its fairness, echoing Trump’s false claims that changes to the electoral system due to the coronavirus emergency constituted fraud. He also downplayed his New York conviction for falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a former adult film star as a minor accounting issue, endearing himself to the former president.

Rubio has maintained a lower profile than some of his rivals, but the Florida senator, who many in Washington believe still harbors presidential ambitions after his humiliating loss to Trump in the 2016 primary, has appeared to try to make himself more acceptable as a running mate. He has been a fierce critic of Trump’s conviction in New York and said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May that he would accept the results of the 2024 election if they were fair, even though there is no indication that they were not.

On the show, Rubio suggested he’s open to working with Trump, despite his mockery of Trump during the 2016 campaign and his original positions on many issues that would put him at odds with the former president, such as foreign policy and immigration. “Anyone who gets offered a job to serve the country in a second capacity, assuming everything else in their life makes sense at that point, if they’re interested in serving their country, I think it’s a great place to serve,” he said. More recently, ahead of the first presidential debate on CNN next Thursday, Rubio has sparked speculation that he could sit down with Trump for a policy debate, putting him on the fast track to the vice presidency.

While all eyes will be on Rubio, Burgum and Vance, Trump’s unconventional approach and penchant for confounding people could lead to a surprise pick. One candidate whose star is fading is South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, who published a book earlier this year to boost her chances of winning, but was embroiled in controversy over an incident in which she shot her dog.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on June 9, Noem appeared to revive her own candidacy by urging Trump to choose a female running mate. “The polls all show that in battleground states, having a woman on the presidential ticket will help you win. That’s what the polls are saying,” she said. Referring to her campaign in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, the South Dakota governor said independents and Trump supporters “want to know that their opinions will be taken into account when the decision is made.”

With less than a month until President Trump is expected to choose his successor, it’s unclear who that will be, which is the former president’s preference.