They called Donald Trump “crazy,” “reckless,” and “reprehensible” and said they would not do business with him.
Now everyone is competing to serve as his running mate.
For some, the criticism came from almost a decade ago, during the former president’s first campaign or at the beginning of his tenure in the White House. For others, the comments occurred as recently as last year. What they all have in common is that, at some point, they questioned Trump’s character, agenda or campaign.
But longtime Trump allies said in conversations that such past criticism may not be disqualifying, as the former president — famous for holding onto grievances — assesses how loyal his potential running mates will be.
“He will look at this more holistically than ever before,” said a longtime Trump ally. “Everyone is a sinner in one way or another. The only question is whether something is a mortal sin or not.”
Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, pointed to the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, when Vice President Kamala Harris sharply criticized President Joe Biden. record about the busing and the “very offensive” comments he made about working with segregationist senators, as evidence that there was nothing unusual about the Trump candidates themselves having previously offered such anti-Trump criticisms.
“It’s important to keep in mind that politics is ultimately politics,” Miller said. “Kamala Harris described Joe Biden as a racist who opposed the integration of public schools and more or less said that Biden hung out with a former KKK leader, Robert Byrd. By comparison, President Trump and any of his potential vice presidents presidents will be much more sympathetic.”
Three Trump allies familiar with the process described a loyalty test sharply focused on whether a candidate supported the former president after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, whether they endorse his false claims of malfeasance involving the 2020 election, and how they have vigorously defended him amid the four separate criminal trials he faces, particularly in hostile TV interviews.
There are other factors Trump is also looking at, as NBC News previously reported, including the candidate’s stance on abortion, how prolific he is in fundraising and how well he compares to Harris in a debate.
But past anti-Trump comments haven’t made much of a difference. As NBC News reported Wednesday, the front-runners are currently North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, J.D. Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, although sources have warned that the list is fluid.
When campaigning against Trump in 2016, Rubio warned that in the coming years there will be “many people on the right, in the media and among voters in general, who will have to explain and justify how they fell into this trap of supporting Donald Trump”. He said Trump was “reckless and dangerous” and would cause “ harm to America .”
Vance described himself in 2016 as “a Never Trump guy,” calling Trump “an idiot,” “harmful,” and “reprehensible.”
In 2017, Scott questioned Trump’s handling of the white nationalist rally and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, criticizing the then-president for drawing an equivalence between protesters and counterprotesters and saying There was “no doubt” that Trump “compromised” his “moral authority.” What’s more, during his presidential campaign, Scott acknowledged on a debate stage that then-Vice President Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6 by refusing to reject electors who affirmed Biden as the duly elected president.
Burgum, who has spent less time in the national spotlight, was reluctant to mention Trump while campaigning against him for president during his short primary run and did not denounce his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. told NBC News’ Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” last year that he wouldn’t want to do business with Trump.
“I just think it’s important that you be judged by the company you keep,” Burgum said before Chuck Todd asked him to clarify: “Would you just not do business with him?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Burgum said.
The North Dakota governor was always reluctant to say Trump’s name when he campaigned against him in the Republican Party primaries and never denounced Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results.
Other potential running mates have also experienced similar moments in the past. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R.N.Y., who has become a staunch Trump loyalist, once called him “crazy” in a message obtained by The New York Times. She also said in a radio interview that Trump was “an insult to women” and predicted that Trump’s candidacy would have negative effects on the Republican Party’s ability to attract female voters.
In a recent interview with Fox News’ Shannon Bream, Stefanik responded to Bream when the anchor brought up the New York Republican’s years-old comments about the former president.
“It’s a disgrace that you quote The New York Times with fake, nameless, faceless sources,” she said.
They are hardly alone on the right. For years, Trump has rehabilitated his relations with Republicans, who once offered him scathing criticism, only to later patch things up and embrace Trump firmly in public.
“No one is clean on this,” said a Trump-aligned Republican operative close to a potential vice presidential pick, noting criticism from candidates in previous cycles, including Republicans who challenged him for the party’s presidential nomination.
This person also mentioned that Trump nodded to Vance’s previous criticism during a recent Republican National Committee retreat at Mar-a-Lago. Trump said of Vance: “You know he was not a supporter of mine. He was saying things like, ‘The guy is a total wreck!’”
“I think that’s always on your mind,” this person added. However, they said that the true test of loyalty for Trump would not be whether anyone ever criticized him, but that “after Trump became president and in moments that didn’t just matter to VP, where were you?”
“It shows loyalty,” this person said.
Trump would not be the first major party candidate to criticize a previous critic. President Ronald Reagan chose George HW Bush to serve as his running mate after Bush delivered scathing criticism of his then-rival in the 1980 Republican primaries. Biden also chose Harris after that headline-grabbing debate moment. But perhaps no presumptive major party candidate in modern times has considered such an extensive list of past critics for the role.
Current candidates have spent years, in some cases, working to overcome past criticism. Vance regretted his comments and built a relationship with Trump ahead of the former president’s endorsement of him in a hotly contested 2022 Ohio Senate race, becoming one of his staunchest allies in the Senate after his election that fall.
Scott built a strong relationship with Trump working on a range of policy issues and met personally with him after Charlottesville, a meeting that led Scott to say Trump had “obviously reflected” in his comments.
Burgum, after having little relationship with Trump before his presidential run, quickly appeared alongside him at several events and attended his trial in Manhattan, which Vance also did.
Meanwhile, Rubio buried his differences with Trump after the 2016 election and worked with him on politics. Although he said Trump was “responsible for some of what happened” on January 6, he called his second impeachment trial “stupid” and voted to acquit him. Rubio also mocked the House select committee tasked with investigating January 6th.
Stefanik was a bulldog defender of Trump during his first impeachment trial, a role she relished in the years that followed.
How they would handle the results of the upcoming elections also became a point of emphasis. In 2020, Rubio voted to accept electors affirming Biden’s victory, but on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” last month, he would not commit to accepting this fall’s results if Biden won. Scott, who also affirmed the 2020 results and said at the start of his presidential bid last year that he would not overturn an election he lost, similarly would not make an unequivocal commitment last month.
“I don’t think Trump cares much whether you criticized him in 2015, 2016 or early 2017,” said one pro-Trump operative. “Look at some of his biggest allies – many of them were critical. A bigger problem for him are the people who abandoned him after January 6th or the people who supported DeSantis over him.
“Do you know who you don’t see on the list of vice presidents? Anyone who supported DeSantis,” this person added, pointing to Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt.
Steve Bannon, a former Trump White House aide and prominent right-wing media personality, said he didn’t think these past criticisms would carry much weight with Trump now, pointing specifically to how Vance and Trump resolved all of this during the 2022 Senate primaries. .
Bannon – who a judge ordered on Thursday to report to prison by July 1 to begin serving his four-month sentence for contempt of Congress – said the real battle for the vice presidential spot is among Trump loyalists , who like the candidates he is considering, and donors who want former U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on the ticket.
Bannon predicted “a showdown” at the convention over this because donors “believe they can force the issue of who is vice president.”
“And they don’t want the governor of North Dakota,” he said. “They want Nikki Haley.”
Haley, who said she would vote for Trump late last month, was vocal in her criticism of him late in his presidential campaign this year. During an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday, Trump said he “was very disappointed in her because she stayed so long.”
“Some people would be very disappointed if I picked her, and possibly some people would be, you know, okay,” he said. “But I gained a lot from her. I mean, I think she was the last one in, but that doesn’t mean she did the best work outside of me.”
The longtime Trump ally explained how for Trump-skeptical Republicans, “all sins were forgiven” if they agreed after the Indiana primary. This time, this person said, contestants will have difficulty or encounter obstacles if they “come off the reservation recently.”
“He will value vocal support,” this person said. “He will reward the people who really supported the tests, the payments, he will reward these things in a meaningful way. And so, yes, [the criticism may be a] tiebreaker, of course. But it will be holistic. And there is a recent component to all of these things that people have said or done.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
