Trump is getting closer to choosing his VP: here are the finalists

Donald Trump leaked his initial list of possible vice presidential candidates and narrowed the selection down to four names. With the Republican National Convention getting closer, the eventual GOP nominee will soon have to decide who will join him on the ticket to try to vacate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris from the White House. Possible names include Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, JD Vance and Doug Burgum.

As reported by Bloomberg, the senator from Florida, the senator from South Carolina, the senator from Ohio and the governor of North Dakota are the finalists to be Trump’s running mate, who currently leads the Democratic president in many key states.

The Republican recently passed through Michigan and Wisconsin, where he devastated Biden’s economy and promised to lead the recovery back to the White House.

“When I left office, we handed Crooked Joe the fastest economic recovery ever recorded. The stock market was at a record high. The price of gasoline was $2 and even less than that a gallon. Think of that. We had periods of time where it was $1.57, $1.87; how does that sound to you? The 30-year mortgage rate was at a record low, the lowest ever recorded. Think of this, 2.65%, that’s what your mortgage rates were. Now you can’t get a mortgage. If you want to pay 8 or 9%, you still can’t get ’em. And we had no inflation,” Trump said.

However, he was also consulted about selecting the vice presidential candidate. “I think we’ll make that decision closer to Wisconsin time (home of the RNC in July). It’s very early right now,” he responded.

As a curious fact, all four of those named have criticized the tycoon in the past, some more harshly than others. Rubio even faced him directly in the 2016 presidential elections when Rubio placed third in number of delegates.

At that time, Trump had Newt Gingrich (former speaker of the House of Representatives), Chris Christie (governor of New Jersey) and Mike Pence (governor of Indiana) as finalists. After an intense final stretch, in which the eventual nominee thought very seriously about the three names, he opted for Pence, who would later accompany him during his term.

Why did Trump choose the then-governor in 2016? According to analysts of the time, Pence provided everything that Trump did not have at that time: executive experience, experience in Congress (where he had been a member of the Foreign Relations Committee) and a behind-the-scenes electoral appeal for GOP voters.

Truthfully, it was a guarantee for all those Republicans who did not see in Trump a conservative they could trust. “His [Pence’s] credentials in the eyes of grassroots conservatives and evangelicals are approaching unimpeachable, while tea partiers and the religious right continue to view Trump with considerable suspicion. His mantra on Capitol Hill was ‘Christian, conservative and Republican, in that order,’ that he was,” wrote analyst David Hawkins at the time.