OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump made a remarkable admission recently, saying even Democrats and “liberals” want to be his running mate and part of his administration should he win in November.
“I get a kick out of watching the fake news media say, ‘Nobody wants to work with him; nobody wants to be vice president; Nobody wants to be secretary of state.’ Everybody wants to be in these positions. There’s is not a person in politics that doesn’t want it, and that includes Democrats. If I wanted, I’d have a Democrat; I’d have a liberal; I’d have … anybody I want,” Trump said.
That said, Trump noted he won’t be picking a Democrat as his running mate or potential vice president.
“But we’re going to pick somebody that’s really good, really conservative; loves law and order, low taxes, low interest rates, borders,” Trump said. “We have to have the border. The border is killing our country.”
Trump says he has his VP pick “in his brain” but won’t announce who it is yet. He did say, however, that his pick is among the names that have been bandied about in the media.
“It’s the formal processes in my brain. I look at the same people that everybody else is looking at. We’ve had some really great people. I think we have really great people that want it. People have … expressed, ‘I would love to be vice president.’ Who wouldn’t? If you’re a politician, who wouldn’t want it?” Trump added.
Earlier this week, reports broke that Trump’s campaign formally sent vice president vetting papers to a short list of potential running mates, and the list includes mostly familiar names.
Multiple news outlets report that Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), plus Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), have received the forms, as have North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
NBC News claimed that the process is “heavily concentrated on four top prospects”—Burgum, Rubio, Scott, and Vance.
The absence of South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as vetting prospects was conspicuously evident in multiple high-profile reports, all of which relied on sources familiar with Trump’s campaign. However, the process is fluid, an insider told the Associated Press.
“Anyone claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump,” Trump campaign spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement to outlets on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, a CNN political data analyst was visibly stunned during a segment by the rising level of support among black Americans for Trump.
Analyst Harry Enten, who has been tracking Trump’s rising support among the black community, noted it has now reached a historic level in the modern era for a Republican presidential contender, adding the voting bloc will prove crucial to winning battleground states like Georgia and Wisconsin.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll conducted in May found that Trump has considerably narrowed his gap with President Joe Biden among black Americans in six battleground states, with Biden leading Trump 70% to 18%. Enten expressed surprise on “CNN News Central” about Trump’s performance among black voters as a Republican candidate and noted Biden’s growing unpopularity with the demographic.
“I keep looking for this to change, to go back to a historical norm, and it, simply put, has not yet,” Enten told host John Berman to begin the segment. “So this is the margin, or, Biden and Trump among black voters, compare where we were at this point in 2020, compare to where we are now.
“At this point, look at this. In 2020, Joe Biden was getting 86% of the African American vote. Look at where it is now. It’s 70%, that’s a 16-point drop, John,” he continued. “And more than that, it’s not just that Joe Biden is losing ground. It’s that Donald Trump is gaining ground. You go from 7%, single-digits at this point in 2020, to now 21%, and again, John, I keep looking for signs that this is going to go back to normal, and I don’t see it yet in the polling of anything right now. We’re careening towards a historic performance for a Republican presidential candidate, the likes of which we have not seen in six decades.”
Enten made it clear to Berman that Biden is retaining older black voters but is bleeding support from younger black voters.
“This is where we get very interesting,” Enten said. “So I decided to deep dive deeper into the cross tabs, figure out where is it that Joe Biden is truly struggling among black voters. All right, so this is black voters, Biden versus Trump margin. Look at black voters age fifty and older, and you’ll see it. Look, Joe Biden was leading amongst this group at this point by 83 points back in 2020. Now, it’s 74 points, so yeah, a slight decline in that margin, but nothing out of this world.”
“Look at black voters under the age of 50,” the data reporter continued. “Holy cow, folks, holy cow. Look at this. Joe Biden was up by 80 points among this group back at this point in 2020; look at where that margin has careened down. It’s now just, get this: 37 points. That lead has dropped by more than half.
“I’ve just never seen anything like this. I’m like speechless because you always look at history and you go, ‘okay, this is a historic moment.’ If this polling is anywhere near correct, we’re looking at a historical moment right now, where black voters under the age of 50, which have historically been such a big part of the democratic coalition, are leaving in droves,” he added.
“It’s partially an artifact of Donald Trump perhaps being better liked among black voters, but it’s also a real artifact of Joe Biden being significantly less liked among black voters than he was four years ago,” Enten concluded.
WATCH:
CNN political analyst “speechless” over the amount of black voters flocking to Trump and leaving brain-dead Biden.
Don’t let the neo-Marxist ‘democrat’ liars tell you it’s not happening. It IS happening. pic.twitter.com/w8r6dOABi1
— USA Features Media (@UsaFeatures) June 17, 2024
