FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK — Donald Trump claims he has chosen his deputy, the vice-presidential candidate who will accompany him in the race towards the White House. He claims that he has made up his mind, that he hasn’t told anyone and that he wants to bring it to the debate with Joe Biden on Thursday. In the studies of CNN However, in Atlanta there will be no audience, therefore it is likely that the announcement could come later and perhaps become a diversiona way to divert attention from the ruling in the Stormy Daniels case scheduled for July 11.
However, the calendar confirms that the announcement is imminent: the Republican convention in Milwaukee — where the presidential ticket will accept the party’s nomination — is three weeks away and all the American media have been making lists of possible candidates for some time nowinvariably reducing them to “three or four names”, perhaps five, and always adding some outsiders at the end.
After abruptly broke up with his old deputy Mike Pence on January 6 — did not obey him and ratified Biden’s victory — Trump would have relied on three factors: the skill in fundraising, the skill in debates and the discipline in the electoral campaign, that absolute loyalty that he requires from all his collaborators.
The favourites that would be North Dakota governor Doug Burgum and three senators: Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina and J.D. Vance of Ohio. However, some claim that the list is “fluid” and also include New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Florida Congresswoman Byron Donalds, former Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty.
A step behind would be the faithful Sarah Huckabee Sanders, her former spokesperson elected governor in Arkansas, and her great rival Nikki Haley. Everyone was asked to send the necessary documents for «vetting»the verification of every sensitive aspect of their public and private lives, which they will then be sifted through by a team of lawyers and campaign officials as if it were a special of The Apprentice.
Vance, 39 years old, is perhaps the first on the list. He grew up in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains and, after fighting in Iraq, studied at Yale and worked in finance with the ultra-Trumpian Peter Thiel. In 2016 he published a best-selling memoir American elegyused by the world’s media to portray Trump’s country, which was made into a film directed by Ron Howard — and used it as a political springboard. At first he said that Trump was “reprehensible and harmful”, then he aligned himselfobtained its endorsement and became a faithful ally.
Rubio, 53 years old, son of Cuban immigrants, is the only one who has been in politics since before the advent of Trump: he was elected to the Senate in 2010 and clashed with him several times when they were both candidates for president. It was 2016, they exchanged heavy insults that went so far as to concern anatomical dimensions, but Rubio lost the battle and gradually moved closer to the former president’s positions. It might help him win the Hispanic vote, but it poses a constitutional problem — the 12th Amendment says if the presidential candidate and the running mate are from the same state they can’t have the electoral votes, and Florida awards 30 — and Trump should forget the old rusts.
Tim Scott, 58, is the only African-American senator among the Republicans. It is an extraordinary money catalyst and could be useful in overcoming the skepticism of evangelicals. Trump himself said to keep an eye on him, but he left no mark in the primary debates.
Finally there is Burgum, who is 67 years old and is a bit of a surprise: a former McKinsey consultant, he made his money by selling a software company to Microsoft and used it to get elected governor in 2016 and then run for president this year. He resembles Pence — a Midwestern conservative who doesn’t “throw shade” — and he is the figure that brings fewer risks, but also fewer benefits.
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