Donald Trump Shares VP Pick Update

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the 2024 election, said on Wednesday that he has ruled out "some people" that he didn't think "behaved properly" from his pool of potential running mates for November 5.

Talking with Newsmax host Greg Kelly on his show Greg Kelly Reports, Trump said that he has "a couple of people" in mind as potential vice president "that you may know very well." He added that he had ruled some people out while also ruling "a lot of people in."

He said: "We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party, and they'll do a terrific job, I think, but certainly I have people that I wouldn't want as a vice president."

While this subtle hint doesn't reveal much about who Trump will pick as his running mate, there's been reports that the former president is carefully considering the candidates' stand on abortion rights.

Last month, Trump reportedly asked diners at Mar-a-Lago what they thought of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina as a potential vice president pick.

Trump was dining at his famed Florida resort when he started polling club members about what they thought of the issue of abortion, according to reporting by NBC News which quoted an anonymous source who was present on the day.

Abortion has been a hugely relevant and divisive issue in American politics in the past few years, as conservatives' efforts to limit access to the procedure across the country culminated in the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in June 2022.

After being reportedly told by a member of the Mar-a-Lago club to pick a candidate that wasn't so strictly against abortion, Trump asked diners what they thought of Scott.

The South Carolina senator, whose name has been thrown about a lot as a potential VP pick for Trump, has been a vocal opponent of abortion rights, defining himself as "strongly pro-life." In 2021, he co-sponsored a bill proposing to sentence doctors performing abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy to up to five years in jail, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

South Carolina has recently passed a fetal heartbeat ban which forbids abortion at around six weeks of pregnancy.

But Trump is possibly looking to avoid picking a VP who's so hardline on abortion, as the source mentioned by NBC said he's convinced the issue of abortion might be more advantageous to Democrats than Republicans.

"The president understands it as a treacherous issue—one that you can actually trip up and fall on your face with," a source told the news company. One of the sources said that Trump saw the issue of abortion as "existential" for the Republican Party.

According to a 2023 poll by Gallup, 34 percent of Americans thought that abortions should be legal under any circumstances; a majority of 51 percent believed it should be legal under certain circumstances; while only 13 percent believed it should be illegal in all circumstances.

Compared to 2007 and 2021, the number of Americans identifying as pro-choice had actually grown from less than 50 percent to 52 percent in 2023, against 44 percent identifying as pro-life on abortion.

The percentage of Republicans who believed abortion should be illegal in all circumstances had actually dropped from 15 percent in 2021 to 8 percent in 2023, according to Gallup data. A majority of 66 percent of GOP voters thought abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, while 24 percent believed it should be legal in all circumstances.

The former president reportedly also mentioned other potential VP picks, including Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, Representative Byron Donalds of Florida and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

Newsweek contacted Trump's 2024 campaign's team for comment by email on Thursday.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was also mentioned "with some concern," NBC writes. Abortion is currently completely banned in South Dakota. Stefanik is also a self-proclaimed "pro-life" Republican, but has supported a 15-week federal abortion ban—seen as less extreme than a possible six-week ban, which has been supported by Scott before. Vance, Rubio and Donalds are also self-declared pro-lifers.

On Wednesday, Trump told Newsmax that he's going to pick someone "that's really good, really conservative, loves law and order, low taxes, low interest rates, borders."