How Will Donald Trump Pick a High Qualities VP Running Mate?

Peter Leverages His White House Experience to Explore Answers

How Will Donald Trump Pick a High Qualities VP Running Mate?

With Nikki Haley now RINO roadkill on the South Carolina super MAGA highway – only Nikki thinks Nikki is still breathing – a gaggle of pompous pundits are pontificating about who Donald Trump should choose as his VP running mate. 

The far better question for observers to ponder is what qualities might my old Boss be looking for in those he will consider?  In fact, Candidate Trump asked that very question in a recent text message to his massive army of MAGA followers. Here are five such possible qualities based on my four years in the White House for you to mull over.

First, Trump may want his next Vice President to be loyal to the man.  This may be particularly true in the wake of Mike Pence’s J6 betrayal and subsequent, albeit fruitless, stabs and jabs at Trump.

This is not to say Trump wants blind loyalty.  One of the reasons I was one of only two senior White House policy advisors to survive from the 2016 campaign to the end of his first term is because I was both absolutely loyal yet unafraid to disagree when he asked for my advice. 

The first couple of times I offered a contrary view, the Boss hammered me hard, likely to see if I would crack. After a while, as I held my ground, he came to trust that my advice was not conditioned on sycophancy or concern about job security.  My guess is he may want that same quality in his next Vice President.

Second, in light of far too many White House and Cabinet officials during Trump’s first term who failed this next test, Trump may well expect his next Vice President to be absolutely loyal to the Trump MAGA agenda.  This was a second reason why I think I survived and flourished in the Trump White House – the Boss and I were totally in sync on virtually every MAGA principle.

At the top of Trump’s MAGA agenda is the importance of Buy  American, Hire America in defending our manufacturing base and boosting blue collar wages; the power of tariffs to defend America against the unfair trade practices of Communist China and many of our so-called “allies;” the overwhelming need both for a secure southern border and mass deportations; and the senselessness of sending young American men and women off to lose their lives or limbs in endless wars.

During the first Trump administration, far too many advisors and bureaucrats thought THEY had been elected president.  They actively sought to undermine Trump’s MAGA agenda. 

You know their names by now from all of the CNN “exposes” of rebellion within the Trump ranks:  Mattis and Esper at the Department of Defense; Wray (still) at the FBI; Barr at the Department of Justice; Mnuchin at Treasury; Gary Cohn and Larry Kudlow deep inside the tent at the National Economic Council; Porter as the Staff Secretary; Kelly and Mulvaney as Chiefs of Staff; Bolton and McMaster at the National Security Counsel; even Pence himself not because he opposed the Trump agenda but because his own Chief of Staff Marc Short was at once a Koch Network puppet and puppet master of Pence himself. 

At different times, I had to fight every single one of these Disloyalists in defense of the Trump agenda.  It seems unlikely Trump’s next Vice President would be cut from this same Disloyalist cloth.

Third, Trump may want his next Vice President to be a master of the policy process.  During my four years in the Trump White House, I had to move quickly up a very steep learning curve to move the Boss’s executive orders and presidential memoranda in what I would come to refer to as “Trump Time.”   Yet, I had to move these powerful policy instruments through a bureaucratic maze riddled with needless layers of review and Deep Administrative State sappers. 

My old Boss will no doubt remember the difficulties and delays he faced, particularly early on with his tariffs, getting the Trump MAGA agenda through that Deep State gauntlet.  Accordingly, he may put a high value on a Vice President who understands that process from Day One and who will be at the vanguard of swiftly working that process.

Fourth, Trump will surely want his next Vice President to be a master of the media.  As I learned in the White House, it’s easy to go on Trump friendly media like Sean Hannity.  Yet, it’s flat out treacherous and possibly even career-ending walking into the lions’ dens of CNN or MSNBC or the Sunday shows of the Never-Trump ABC, CBS, and NBC. 

If you don’t believe 10 seconds of saying stupid stuff in front of a TV camera can end a career, just watch the clip of Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney dig himself a “quid pro quo” grave on Ukraine.  Or cringe at Sean Spicer forever crippling his tenure as press secretary on his first day on the job with an inaugural “largest audience ever” gaffe.

Know this: the nanosecond Trump announces his VP pick, he or she will have to be seasoned enough to weather what will be a withering storm and a glaring, often blinding, media spotlight.  Trump’s VP must be out of the gate ready for that challenge.

Finally, Trump may also want his next VP to be as tireless a campaigner as Trump is himself.  Mike Et Tu Brutus Pence not only readily embraced the campaign trail.  His finest moments were his debates with an out-of-control Tim Kaine in 2016 and an arrogant and condescending Kamala Harris in 2020 – that pesky Democrat fly on Pence’s head notwithstanding. 

Trump will likely demand no less of his next VP.  I’m sorry it won’t and can’t be Mike, who I liked a lot but who folded under pressure.  Of course, I’m also sorry, not sorry, it won’t be Nikki either.