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- ABC News
- September 20, 2023
Would Trump run with an opponent?
History suggests he won't — and so do their tweets.
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But Ramaswamy has also dropped in a handful of digs at Trump, criticizing him for policy decisions related to international relations and student-loan forgiveness. And when asked at the Iowa State Fair in August whether he would consider serving as vice president, Ramaswamy was hardly deferential to the current front-runner. “[Trump] and I share something in common,” Ramaswamy said. “Neither of us do pretty well in a number-two position. So I expect that he will be my adviser, and I expect that he will accept that job.”
In late August, when radio host Glenn Beck asked Trump whether he’d consider Ramaswamy for vice president, Trump praised how much Ramaswamy has praised Trump, but also cautioned him to be “a little bit careful” with his controversial remarks. “Some things you have to hold in just a little bit,” Trump advised. “He’s been very nice to me,” Trump continued. “Most of them have, except [former New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie.”
(Trump isn’t wrong. Christie has tweeted about Trump more than any other top-polling candidate, and almost all of those tweets have been negative, with just a couple exceptions. It’s probably safe to cross him off the list of potential Trump running mates.)
Ramaswamy, though, has one major drawback as a potential running mate: He has no political experience. And Kamarck suggested that Trump might also take experience into account for his pick. “There are plenty of politicians out there who have been [with] Trump all the way,” she said.
That brings us to another frequently mentioned potential vice president, Sen. Tim Scott. He is a quieter supporter of Trump, as he has kept his mentions of the former president to a minimum. We didn’t find any Scott tweets that directly criticized Trump, but we also haven’t seen a tweet expressing support for him personally since March 2021. Instead, Scott has managed to express support for the Trump administration without directly supporting the man himself.
Under the Trump administration, we made a lot of progress toward stopping crime while making our justice system fairer for everyone. This last year under Joe Biden, crime rates have skyrocketed as Democrats push a dangerous anti-law enforcement agenda.
— Tim Scott (@votetimscott) February 3, 2022
Like Scott, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has neither criticized nor supported Trump on the platform formerly known as Twitter. However, DeSantis has taken it a step further, hardly addressing the former president’s existence — though that might be changing. DeSantis has mentioned Trump in exactly four tweets since Jan. 6, 2021, decrying “the weaponization of federal law enforcement” on June 8, 2023, the day the federal government indicted Trump for his handling of classified documents. His second, third and fourth tweets all came just this week, as he contrasted his record with Trump’s on policies ranging from spending to abortion to digital currency. However, on the stump, DeSantis has been more vocal — although still cautious — about Trump’s flaws. And Trump seems to have taken notice, directing his ire at DeSantis for his perceived disloyalty.
Two other candidates have recently started more aggressively criticizing Trump on X. One of them has been floated as a potential running mate; the other has already served as Trump’s vice president and will almost certainly not do so again.
Mike Pence, who had long tread lightly in criticizing Trump, started attacking him more forcefully after releasing a memoir in 2022 describing his experience during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But until June of this year, most of his tweets mentioning Trump either expressly supported him or mentioned him in passing. But since announcing his own candidacy, he has mentioned Trump in 15 tweets, and 11 of them were negative. (We excluded tweets that specifically mentioned the “Trump-Pence administration,” since Pence generally uses that phrase to refer to his own record rather than talk about Trump.)
President Trump and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to reject electoral votes and chaos would have ensued. To keep faith with the oath that I made to the American people and to Almighty God, I did my duty that day. pic.twitter.com/FktUIODXCF
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) August 2, 2023
But Trump is not going to name Pence his vice president, no matter how much Pence tempers his criticism of the former president. Trump has been clear that he sees Pence’s certification of the 2020 results as the ultimate act of betrayal, though Trump also took Pence’s subsequent decision to run for president as disloyal, too.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, however, has been mentioned as a potential Trump pick. But that speculation may be behind the times: In recent months, Haley has become more critical of Trump. Between January of 2021 and August of 2022, we identified 39 tweets from Haley that mentioned Trump — all of them either neutral or positive. But since June 2023, every time she’s mentioned Trump in a tweet, it’s been negative.
Trump congratulated the Communist Party on its 70th anniversary of conquering China. That sent the wrong message to the world.
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) June 27, 2023
Chinese Communism must be condemned, never congratulated. #HaleyAtAEI
And our analysis doesn’t include the many veiled criticisms of Trump that omit his name but are clearly targeted at the former president. Tweets from her team, for example, call Haley “the only candidate who can beat Joe Biden and expand the party.” She has also alluded to Trump’s contribution to the $33 trillion national debt multiple times.
At one point in the cycle, it seemed like almost any of the Republicans running for president could be named vice president. Until late spring, most candidates were staying on Trump’s good side, withholding criticism of him on social media and on the stump. But things have quietly shifted over the last few months, with fewer and fewer GOP candidates afraid of attacking Trump. Even as most of the candidates on the debate stage tempered their criticism of Trump, they did make thinly veiled jabs by calling for new leadership. That, coupled with these subtle changes in how they discuss Trump in their social media, signal that maybe these candidates are actually willing to take on Trump — and that the Republican candidates running for president might actually be running for president.
Mary Radcliffe contributed research.
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