Should Donald Trump win the presidency at age 78, he will be constitutionally limited to one term. What this means is that anyone invested in a post-Trump Republican Party should have more than just a passing interest in Trump’s selection of a running mate.
Among the smorgasbord of bad options on the veep menu, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has reportedly made the short list of possible Trump running mates. The renegade ex-Democrat from Hawaii stands out as perhaps the most plausible choice—even if her selection would spell trouble for both Donald Trump and the conservative movement.
Remember, Gabbard served as a surrogate for democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. As recently as September of 2019, she explained to podcaster Dave Rubin why she is now pro-choice and no longer pro-life.
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Now, you may think that it is quaint to worry about ideological purity. After all, a lot of conservatives feared that Trump—a former Democrat who invited Bill and Hillary Clinton to his wedding and financially supported their campaigns—would govern as a liberal. Instead, he governed as a maniac.
Still, thanks to those fears, Trump was forced to take steps to mitigate that impression and earn conservative support. He released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees. He picked Mike Pence as his running mate. These choices mattered. It is entirely plausible that he would not have won otherwise.
Selecting Gabbard as Trump’s running mate in 2024 would send the exact opposite signal to conservatives. (And no, I’m not talking about Never Trump conservatives. I’m talking about the ones who held their nose and voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020—the ones who might be more inclined to pull the lever for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024.)
Trump was a moral, ethical, and electoral disaster for Republicans; but—thanks in large part to groups like the Federalist Society and Sen. Mitch McConnell—he delivered on Supreme Court judges.
Can the conservative elites and infrastructure pull off that maneuver twice? I’m not so sure.
Gabbard, who only recently left the Democratic Party, has been all over the place ideologically, so it’s difficult to pinpoint what she truly believes. Even her reinvented persona is more about “owning the libs” than it is about embracing a conservative worldview. (Disclosure: My wife previously worked as a consultant for Tulsi’s conservative father, Mike Gabbard. I’ve never met either Gabbard.)
For Trump, though, it’s easy to imagine he might see her populist, unorthodox, post-partisan image as a feature, not a bug. That is one reason why I suspect she’s Trump’s frontrunner.
The other reason has to do with the process of elimination.
According to The Daily Beast’s Jake Lahut and Zachary Petrizzo, “Trumpworld has been bandying about the names of Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), along with a third contender who has already begun to rankle corners of Trumpworld: Tulsi Gabbard.”
In a sane world, none of these names would be within a mile of the vice presidency, much less on a “short list.”
Regardless, I suspect Stefanik and Greene have specific flaws that will rankle Trump.
To paraphrase The Godfather, Trump did business with Elise Stefanik. Trump liked Elise Stefanik. But Trump never trusted Elise Stefanik (at least, according to what Trump insiders told The New York Times).
Meanwhile, the problem with Greene (you know, aside from the QAnon and Jewish space lasers stuff) is that she’s a threat. The thing Trump cares about more than anything is getting all the attention, and Greene could become Sarah Palin to Trump’s John McCain—which is to say that she could eclipse Trump at his own rallies and with his own fan base.
Remember why Trump settled for Mike Pence instead of Newt Gingrich back in 2016? As Newt put it, you can’t have two “pirates” on the same ticket. Well, MTG strikes me as a pirate, too, which is why she will walk the plank over shark-infested waters.
Aside from not being a threat to Trump’s ego, Pence also delivered a sense of reassurance to mainstream conservatives and evangelicals who had reservations about backing Trump.
But after Pence’s refusal to overturn the 2020 election, Trump is through going along with establishment Republicans he doesn’t trust—which is bad news for Stefanik. At the same time, the things Trump fears most are 1) being overshadowed and 2) not being the center of attention—bad news for MTG.
By my count, that leaves one clear frontrunner.
Trump shouldn’t pick Tulsi Gabbard to be his veep. And that’s just one more reason why he probably will.
