Avoid Being a Toxic and Terrible Running Mate for Trump

We’re getting close to the party conventions, and within just the past week we’ve seen three flagrant examples of the exact opposite of what Republicans hoping to be Donald Trump’s running mate should be doing.

I’m not sure what Republicans anticipate, but if it’s that the next six months will be “challenging” or “grueling,” they haven’t been paying attention. This election is going to be bloodshed. The tumult of 2020 was just a precursor. The havoc that’s to come will meet Trump’s pick for vice president just the same. With that in mind…

1. Don’t let your mouth write a check you can’t cash

As of this writing, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, once highly recommended as a V.P. contender, is on a tour of self-humiliation, answering questions about inexplicable claims she made in a book that are either demonstrably false or bizarre to the point of psychopathy.

In her autobiography, which she almost certainly didn’t write, Noem said she blasted a 14-month-old family dog with a shotgun after allowing it to run wild. Even more egregious, she claimed to have “met with” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who “underestimated me.” Even starving North Koreans heard that tale and mustered the strength to say, “Girl, you sound really, really dumb!”

Noem’s defense of both claims, embarrassing in themselves, has been excruciating to witness. She said working on a farm means she has to kill animals all the time – a perfectly healthy, though poorly trained house dog is just like a sick, old horse! — and then refused to admit that she never actually met Kim Jong Un. She would only allow that, “I don’t have conversations about my conversations with world leaders,” while also insisting that she has asked that the book’s content be amended to exclude the Kim anecdote about having been “underestimated” by Kim altogether.

Republicans who want to sincerely help take back the White House— you won’t do it by mythologizing yourselves in ways that are unserious at best, and repulsive at worst.

2. Always and forever reject the national media’s faulty frame and premise

Doug Burgum, governor of the other Dakota, has shown promise as a potential running mate or future cabinet member in a second Trump administration. But in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper this past weekend, he also showed he’s not yet capable of properly humbling and belittling media figures who eagerly attempt to destroy him.

Referring to recent remarks by Trump at a fundraiser, Tapper asked Burgum if he was “comfortable” with the former president “comparing the Biden administration to the Gestapo.” Bergum dismissed Trump’s accusation as “a short comment, deep into the thing that wasn’t really central to what he was talking about.” That is precisely the wrong way to answer an insidious question.

The right way is to tell the dork anchor that you’re just as comfortable with a Nazi Germany comparison to Biden as Tapper is with his entire network repeatedly employing the “Big Lie” phrase, coined by Hitler to demonize Jews, as a metaphor for Trump contesting the 2020 election. Why, Jake, are you comfortable with using views espoused by Adolf Hitler to attack your political opposition? Jake, aren’t you Jewish? Why are you okay with that type of hateful rhetoric?

Burgum made a valiant effort by pointing out the unfair application of the law to Democrats’ prosecution of Trump, but that’s a mistake and inadvertently legitimizes the illegality of the process. What matters is that the prosecution is politically driven, is corrosive to democracy, and is cheered on to the delight of Joe Biden and Democrats, members of a major political party that is openly destroying the once-sacred rule of law by corrupting our legal institutions, traditions, and norms.

3. Embrace the fact that this is unlikely to be a fair election and say so out loud

In another TV interview over the weekend, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott was asked multiple times to concede Republican defeat in the 2024 race, six months before Election Day. “Will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024, bottom line?” asked NBC’s Kristen Welker.

Then she asked: “Yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter who wins?” and, “Just yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024?” and, “Just a yes or no answer,” and, “Will you commit to accepting the election results?” and, “Will you accept to commit to the election results in this election cycle no matter who wins?”

Scott repeatedly said he expected Trump to win the election and wouldn’t answer a “hypothetical.” It’s a response that does no particular harm but misses an indispensable opportunity to urgently confront the gravest threat to our republic— demonstrable, verifiable election rigging by Democrats, the media, and Washington.

A more useful answer from Scott would go something like this: “I’m not going to preemptively concede defeat in order to make it easier for Democrats, the media, and the permanent bureaucracy to conspire and steal this election. We’ve seen this playbook before. The same people rigged the 2016 election and hamstrung Trump’s first term in office by spying on his campaign and falsely accusing him of being a Russian asset. The same people rigged the 2020 election by suppressing damaging information about Joe Biden, censoring information about Covid-19, and instigating a race war. That’s on top of the unconstitutional court rulings that flooded the nation with illegal ballots and circumvented state legislatures in regulating their elections. I know what you’re up to and there’s no telling how far you’ll go this time, so don’t you dare ask me to accept defeat on your program before this is anywhere close to being over.”

This isn’t going to be easy. It’s not going to be “hard.” It’s going to be a bloodbath. Republicans who can’t foresee that will be better off not going on TV and not saying things they can’t competently defend. And they definitely should not hope to be Donald Trump’s running mate.