WASHINGTON — For congressional leaders, weekly push conferences are a time to outline a policy agenda, talk a message and push a contrast with the opposition party.
For Home Republican Meeting Chair Elise Stefanik, a vice presidential hopeful, they’re also an option to get in front of a Tv digital camera and shower praise on Donald Trump.
“America is rallying in assist of President Trump to conserve America and fireplace Joe Biden,” Stefanik, R-N.Y., explained to reporters in her opening remarks at a latest push convention, congratulating him for winning a principal contest in advance of pivoting to legislative business.
Stefanik has also employed her perch on the House’s instruction committee to faucet into the conservative zeitgeist by confronting school presidents through televised hearings, fueling numerous resignations amid campus protests in excess of Israel and Gaza.
And she is not on your own. Other vice presidential potential clients like Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., are also working with the options afforded to them in Congress to burnish their credentials to appeal to Trump. That includes working with their vote cards, committee seats, procedural equipment and — potentially most importantly — their ability to get on Tv to converse to an audience of one particular.
“He understands the devil’s in the information. So he places his amazing daughter-in-legislation in demand of our RNC equipment,” Scott said on Sean Hannity’s Fox News demonstrate soon after Trump installed Lara Trump as new co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
“At the close of the day, you want the ball in the hands of the most effective player on the field. That player is Donald Trump,” he added in what arrived across as a thinly veiled VP audition tape.
For many years, Capitol Hill has been a highly effective launching pad for vice presidential nominees. In the very last 20 many years, six of the 8 preferred had been sitting down customers of Congress. A seventh, Mike Pence, was a previous member turned Indiana governor. Heading again to 1992, 9 of 10 managing mates had expertise serving in Congress (the exception was Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor, in 2008).
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who was Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential select in 2016, stated the nature of the GOP jockeying on Capitol Hill is “different” than it was in the previous.
“Normally, getting also daring about your ambition is likely not a fantastic issue. But Donald Trump’s not the normal male. So I feel the jockeying is incredibly unusual, but it is form of in character with what men and women understand about Trump,” Kaine claimed in an interview. “The way to impress him is not by getting a dutiful soldier who just retains your head down and performs. The way to impress him is to really flatter him and suck up to him.”
Greene, the far-proper congresswoman who has indicated desire in currently being VP, has sought to curry favor with Trump by participating in a weekslong press to oust Property Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., accusing him of betraying the GOP and the MAGA motion. Her push unsuccessful Wednesday as a vast the greater part of Republicans and Democrats voted to shoot down her motion. Trump largely steered clear of the melee, providing phrases of help to both of those sides.
“I totally appreciate Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Trump stated on social media right after the vote closed, while adding that it was “not the time” for her movement to vacate the speaker’s chair.
Vance, a former Trump critic turned staunch ally who was first elected in 2022, has toured the Sunday demonstrate circuit to align with a central concept of Trump’s campaign: that Congress shouldn’t have licensed the 2020 election for Biden, even although he won.
“If I experienced been vice president, I would have told the states — like Pennsylvania, Ga and so quite a few other folks — that we required to have multiple slates of electors and I imagine the U.S. Congress should have fought about it from there,” Vance mentioned lately on ABC’s “This Week.” “That is the reputable way to offer with an election that a whole lot of individuals, together with me, believe experienced a whole lot of complications in 2020.”
By distinction, Rubio and Scott voted with the large bulk of the Senate to certify Biden’s gain in the several hours immediately after police cleared the Jan. 6 rioters out of the Capitol. Stefanik and Greene were between 139 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 final result.
Trump’s election denial statements have been a central concept of his marketing campaign as he promises revenge against his foes. Scott and Rubio have taken take note. Scott regularly refused to say this month on NBC’s “Meet The Press” irrespective of whether he’d accept the final result of the 2024 election. Rubio reported on ABC that some Jan. 6 defendants have been “egregiously charged” for trespassing onto the Capitol grounds.
Vance has also carved out a niche as an outspoken opponent of U.S. help to Ukraine, aligning with quite a few Trump voters.
A recent vote on a package of aid to Ukraine and Israel highlighted divisions. Vance and Rubio voted from it, even though Scott came out in favor of it but missed the vote. In the Home, where by the expenditures were being broken up, Stefanik voted to help Israel but not Ukraine. Greene voted from both measures.
In his assertion, Scott took a swipe at Biden: “The effort of Congress to assist our allies need to be applauded, but President Biden’s foreign policies have been an utter failure.”
Rubio’s “no” vote on assist to Ukraine and Israel highlights his evolution because 2016, when he introduced himself as an outspoken foreign policy hawk who favors an lively U.S. position in shaping world affairs. Critics accuse Rubio of pandering to MAGA-design and style nationalism, but Rubio’s allies say his views reflect transforming realities in the U.S. and around the planet.
Amid the rumored VP contenders this 12 months, Rubio has been less bombastic about Trump and instead leaned on his legislative resume. He has utilised his perch as the leading Republican on the Intelligence Committee to spotlight his hawkish approach to China, including as an early proponent of legislation to ban TikTok, a well known application owned by a Beijing-based firm that answers to the Chinese Communist Occasion. Allies take note that he served shape areas of the 2017 tax cuts, Trump’s main domestic accomplishment as president.
Portion of the attractiveness of Rubio and Scott is that both equally are well-liked by Republican donors who are skeptical of Trump and his MAGA movement. That’s fewer true of Vance and Greene.
But Rubio is also careful to prevent criticizing Trump and brief to dismiss issues from reporters about his controversial or offensive statements. He seems aware of Trump’s red line not to grant any legitimacy to the dozens of prison charges he’s dealing with. Rubio has even endorsed Trump’s sweeping claims of presidential immunity from prosecution for perhaps committing crimes.
“Hillary stated to me, ‘There’s better political picks than you but if something happens to me, you would be a good president.’ That is not the way that Donald Trump is going to technique this,” Kaine reported. “He’s likely to solution it as: ‘Who will be the most loyal to me?’ When it would seem like, to be in the jogging, you cannot even say you will abide by the election result? That is very hazardous.”
