Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him on Threads. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
The Donald Trump vice presidential reality selection show is heating up, with pundits laying out lists of possible people Trump might choose. They range from South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim Scott, to Ohio Sen. JD Vance, to even former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
This may seem premature since Trump has only locked up 32 of the 1,215 GOP delegates needed to secure the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But with great confidence I can share how Trump will decide his pick if he does win the nomination.
Trump won’t select a running mate who will help expand his voting base, as he did in 2016 when he named then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who had broad support from conservative evangelicals and experience in foreign affairs as the vice chair of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. Nor will Trump — who turns 78 in June and whose increasing verbal errors have raised red flags about his mental fitness — make it a priority to pick a vice president who is ready to step in for him as commander in chief if need be.
The one and only metric Trump can be sure to employ is who will be the most loyal to him. It’s that simple. And that’s especially true after Pence chose loyalty to the US Constitution above Trump himself on January 6, 2021, when Trump wanted Pence to block Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
As a reminder, in response to Trump pressuring him to thwart the transfer of power when presiding over the January 6 joint session of Congress, Pence posted on social media hours before: “It is my considered judgement that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
As a result, Trump was left to publicly beg Pence later that day to do his bidding by way of both social media posts and in his speech at the Ellipse south of the White House shortly before his supporters launched their attack on the US Capitol, disrupting Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote showing Biden had beaten Trump. And during the attack, Trump expressed his frustration with his vice president for refusing to block the certification by tweeting that Pence “didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Do you think Trump wants to go through that again? Of course not! He needs absolute loyalty.
After all, Trump’s announced second-term agenda will feature “retribution” and “revenge.” To do so, Trump — who is facing 91 felony charges in four cases — has vowed to use the Department of Justice as weapon to investigate his political opponents. (Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the cases against him.)
Trump’s plans include reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers so he can replace them with people who will be loyal to his agenda. And Trump — who has repeatedly praised dictators and autocratic leaders — recently announced on Fox News that if he wins in 2024, he would be a dictator but only for “Day One” of his presidency.
With those type of schemes, Trump needs a vice president who will not push back like Pence did. Rather, Trump requires someone who will passionately and unquestioningly work with him to achieve his extreme and undemocratic agenda.
The question, then, is which of the names being floated for his running mate meets that standard? Many would point to New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, who now parrots all things Trump, including calling the people in prison for attacking our Capitol — including those who assaulted policeofficers or were found guilty of seditious conspiracy in connection with January 6 — “hostages.” Stefanik has also echoed Trump’s claim that his prosecution for various alleged crimes is “weaponization of the federal government,” and even deleted a tweet in which she had denounced the January 6 attack as “absolutely unacceptable and anti-American” — as former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney recently noted.
But there is still time for a person like Scott to make up ground. And Scott is doing just that, as we saw Tuesday night when he literally professed his love to Trump. That happened during Trump’s victory speech in New Hampshire, when Scott stated he didn’t really hate Trump’s GOP opponent Nikki Haley — who appointed him as senator years ago — after the former president surmised that he must loathe her given that he had endorsed Trump instead. Rather, Scott declared to Trump in front of the audience, “I just love you.”
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There are also dark horses like Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, who not only is an avid Trump booster, but in 2022 publicly vacuumed the red rug that Trump would be standing on with her and declared that Trump had “BDE” — referring to the big energy linked in some way to the alleged size of his penis. That is a special type of commitment.
In fact, there’s plenty of time for the other contestants vying to be Trump’s VP pick to debase themselves with public displays of affection. They just need to remember that when it comes to Trump’s ultimate selection — assuming he wins the GOP nomination — his top concern won’t be who is the best choice for the United States.
