Trump VP rumors swirl

In recent days, rumors about Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick have taken on a new life. Several new potential picks are being mentioned, and at least one formerly prominent choice has probably dropped out of contention.

I compiled a list of likely picks back in January, and one of the potential running mates that I viewed as most likely back then now seems to be very unlikely. Amid the backlash to revelations in her shouldn’t-have-told-all book, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s chances of being added to the ticket now seem as dead as her family’s puppy. Noem’s tale of killing her family dog not only turned the nation against her but raised questions about her political judgment in believing that bragging about the killing was a good idea.

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While Noem’s star was dying, Nikki Haley’s seemed to rise. At least momentarily. Over the weekend, Axios reported that Haley was under consideration. It didn’t take long for Trump to refute the report, posting on Truth Social, “Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the VP slot, but I wish her well!”

Spoiler alert: He doesn’t wish her well and the idea that Haley would be considered was never more than wishful thinking on the part of Republicans who are not fully MAGA. Haley directly challenged Trump and continues to rack up a nontrivial share of Republican primary votes even though she is no longer in the race. As of this writing, Haley has still not bent the knee to Trump. All of these are reasons that she could never be Trump’s running mate, even though she would be a smart strategic pick.

As I wrote back in January, Trump almost certainly wants someone with three specific qualities:

1. Loyalty

2. Loyalty

3. Loyalty

Trump does not want another Mike Pence who let vestigial principles get in the way of doing Trump’s bidding. Without a doubt, Trump’s vice president would be asked to engage in ethically (and possibly legally) questionable acts. Trump wants a sold-out loyalist who will follow his orders, not think and question him. That eliminates Haley.

But many Republicans do meet that test, including Tim Scott. Scott was last seen on NBC News preemptively refusing to commit to accepting the election results. This should not be a gotcha question, but Scott would only say, “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be Donald Trump.”

Taken in context, Scott’s statement is tantamount to an admission that he will not accept the results if Trump loses. That is the sort of person that Trump wants.

Marco Rubio is a similar possibility and one who has the added benefit of not having directly opposed Trump since 2016. Rubio, formerly a conservative, penned an op-ed in The American Conservative last week titled “Trump Is Right: We Should Raise Tariffs on China,” in which he acknowledged that the policy would raise prices for American consumers, but if Trump wants it, that’s good enough for him.

“Will greater trade barriers raise some prices at the department store?” Rubio asked rhetorically. “Perhaps, but American producers will step up to fill the gap.”

The unspoken truth is that Trump’s 10 percent tariff on all imports (and here is your periodic reminder that a tariff is by definition a tax on trade) would also include raw materials and components used by American manufacturers. If inflation and consumer prices are a concern, tariffs are bad policy, and the truth undercuts Trump’s claims that he would lower taxes.

Rubio’s nomination would be problematic because both he and Trump are Florida residents and the Constitution prohibits a president and vice president from being citizens of the same state. When asked, Rubio refused to say whether he would give up his Florida residency, a move that would also put his Senate seat in jeopardy.

And then there is Doug Burgum. The North Dakota governor was recently seen speaking at a Trump rally in New Jersey. Like many of the other potential picks, Burgum loses points for having had the temerity to oppose Trump in the primary, but the governor has been striving to prove his loyalty since dropping out.

And Burgum has something that Trump desperately needs: Cash. The Trump campaign is losing the fundraising race to Joe Biden and much of Trump’s take is going to pay legal fees. Forbes estimated that Burgum is worth at least $100 million, enough to buy his way into the Republican primary debates by offering $20 gift cards to anyone who donated $1 to his campaign. Burgum is undoubtedly already tapping his corporate contacts for donations, and it is uncertain how much of his personal wealth he would bet on the election.

I included quite a few other potential picks in my January article, and a lot of these still make sense even though they haven’t been the subject of recent rumors. Personally, I think Elise Stefanik is still a strong candidate although she’s been a sleeper choice recently. The New York congresswoman has been a fierce supporter of Trump since she abruptly changed teams during Trump Impeachment I, and like Tim Scott, she has also laid the groundwork to be an election denier.

Another possibility that I mentioned in January is likely out of contention. Kari Lake, the failed gubernatorial and current Senate candidate in Arizona, seems to have lost Trump’s favor. Sources say that The Former Guy is concerned that Lake’s unpopularity might hurt his own polling, and the Washington Post reported in April that Trump hinted that Lake needed to spend less time at Mar-A-Lago and more time on the campaign trail.

I have to wonder why anyone would think that being Trump’s running mate is a good career move. Donald Trump has left a trail of destroyed and incarcerated Republicans in his wake since he descended the Wonka-ish golden escalator in 2015. Any delusions that a moderate Republican on the ticket or in Trump’s cabinet could temper his worst tendencies have long ago been shown to be folly. Many of the hopefuls probably assume that the name recognition and association with Trump that come from being at the top of the ticket will translate into frontrunner status in 2028. That’s not necessarily a safe assumption.

Just ask Mike Pence.

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STATE DEPT REPORT FAULTS ISRAEL: A new report by the US State Department found that Israel has probably violated international humanitarian laws, but the AP noted that the violations were so far not linked to specific American weapons. Last week, the Biden Administration announced a pause on deliveries of offensive weapons like bombs and artillery shells to Israel over concerns about civilian casualties.

As someone noted recently, it’s possible to love and support Israel without supporting every policy of the Israeli government. After all, God has been doing that for much of the past few thousand years.

From the Racket News 

Biden's Israel arms pause

 Joe Biden has announced that he will withhold arms shipments to Israel in response to Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to attack Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza. Many Republicans are critical of the decision and compare it to Donald Trump’s interruption of aid to Ukraine, an action that resulted in his first impeachment.

Specifically, President Biden said that he would pause shipments of weapons that are being used offensively in Gaza such as bombs and artillery shells. He has said that shipments of defensive weapons will continue. 

Aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal area of Gaza City, 9 October 2023 (Wafa (Q2915969/APAimagesWikimedia)

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“We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently,” Biden said. “But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to – we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

The president emphasized, “We’re not walking away from Israel’s security. We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

At about the same time, CNN reported that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed that the US already paused a shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs over concern about the use of the bombs in Gaza’s densely populated areas. Austin said that a final decision on the shipment had not been made but that the shipment was not part of the recently passed aid package. 

“My final comment is that we are absolutely committed to continuing to support Israel in its right to defend itself,” Austin said.

At this point, it seems that the Biden Administration’s main difference with Netanyahu is over the prosecution of the war in Gaza, not over Israel’s right to act defensively or retaliate when attacked. That is a common view in the international community. 

Whatever your opinion on Israel’s strategy, it is apparent that the war in Gaza has resulted in a humanitarian nightmare. Hamas is ultimately responsible for the war, and much has been made of Israel’s stringent rules of engagement that are designed to minimize needless civilian casualties, yet it is also apparent that Israel has killed untold thousands of innocents. As Steve Berman noted back in December, Israel admitted that at least 15,000 Palestinians had been killed up to that point, a number that was similar to claims of the Gaza Health Ministry. 

Many of those Palestinian dead were not combatants. While it’s true to say that Hamas is deliberating causing many of these casualties by denying civilians the ability to take shelter or evacuate, it is also true that Israel has needlessly killed civilians through either errors and/or lax enforcement of its ROE. It is difficult to say that Israel is blameless when Israeli soldiers gunned down three of the same hostages that they are supposed to be rescuing. There is no way of knowing how many unarmed Palestinians have been killed under similar circumstances. I don’t believe all stories of Israeli atrocities, but I’m not prepared to discard them either. 

One question is whether Israel has gone too far in its attempts to root out Hamas. Another question is whether Israel’s priority should be the return of its hostages or the destruction of Hamas. At this point, I’m not sure how many hostages are left alive and, as I pointed out last year, Hamas is so deeply integrated into Gaza that the only way to wipe out Hamas would be to wipe out Gaza The world would not stand for that, and even if that strategy were pursued, it would not guarantee the end of Hamas. 

Two months ago, 70 percent of Jewish Israelis supported a move into Rafah, but more recently, a small majority (56 percent) favored reaching a deal to return the hostages over attacking the Hamas stronghold. Two-thirds of Israeli Arabs opposed the Rafah invasion. 

In the US, there is a similar pattern. Americans overwhelmingly supported Israel in the early days of the war, and as recently as March, Pew found that 58 percent believed that Israel had valid reasons for the war. The flip side is a Gallup poll from the same period that found that only about a third of Americans approved of Israel’s military action. A Wall Street Journal poll from March found that 40 percent believed that Israel’s response had gone too far. That number is likely higher two months later. 

These varying results can be explained by understanding that people, both in Israel and the US, support Israel and believe it has a right to retaliate against Hamas but also disagree with the way that Israel has responded. Put another way, people who are sympathetic to Israel’s plight can disagree with Netanyahu’s strategy. 

So that brings us back to Joe Biden. First, Biden’s pause differs from Trump’s interference with Ukraine aid in that there is a legitimate policy goal in stopping Israel from invading Rafah. In Trump’s case, the only point was Trump’s personal goal of having Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden. To be more specific, Trump didn’t even necessarily want a real investigation of the Bidens, he only wanted Ukraine to publicly announce such an inquiry. 

Biden’s move is not unprecedented. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan paused deliveries of F-16 fighters and cluster bombs to Israel because he opposed the Israeli operations in Lebanon, a war similar in many ways to today’s war in Gaza. Reagan also suspended a US-Israeli strategic agreement to punish Israel for its annexation of the Golan Heights, a territory captured in the Six Day War. 

While it is possible to legitimately question and critique Biden’s decision, it is apparent there were real policy reasons for him to initiate the pause. Does it benefit Biden politically? Quite possibly, but that is not a test of whether a policy is ethical. If it was, we would have to impeach every politician in office. The president’s job is to set foreign policy, and it is not unreasonable to acknowledge that politics impacts policy. Supporting Israel does not necessarily mean giving the country a blank check and never opposing its actions. 

Evidence of Biden’s commitment to Israel is that the president presided over the first incident in history that I am aware of in which American forces fired shots in defense of the Jewish state. The US shot down most of the missiles and drones that Iran had launched in a massive strike against Israel last month. 

But I do have questions. Back in 2020, the GAO determined that Trump’s impoundment of aid to Ukraine was unlawful. The nature of the aid to Ukraine was that it was congressionally approved and was subject to a mandatory timeline that required it to be disbursed before the end of the 2019 fiscal year. In the case of the aid to Ukraine, the GAO determined that Trump’s actions violated the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which does not permit impounding funds for “policy reasons.”

There are obvious differences between the Biden pause and the Trump delay. For starters, Biden’s policy change has been public while Trump’s was done behind closed doors. Biden has also stated his reasons for the shift, and his pause has not gone beyond the fiscal year. 

What is not clear at this point is whether the aid to Israel is subject to the same conditions as the Ukraine aid. The measures were passed as part of different laws and these legal details matter. It is not clear whether the aid to Israel was merely authorized or mandated or whether the law specified the aid to be given. For example, could Biden meet the letter of the law by sending small arms ammunition rather than bombs and artillery shells that would be used offensively? 

Reuters reports that billions of dollars of aid to Israel are still in the pipeline, and we need more details to determine the legality of Biden’s hold. My guess is that the Biden White House has been more competent in assessing their authority to pause the aid and that Biden is more likely to listen to legal advice than Donald Trump. 

I don’t know if Biden’s action is the correct one. I am ambivalent about the war in Gaza. Retaliation was necessary after the October 7 attacks, but the human cost has been horrible. Regardless of whether Israel pushes into Rafah, I don’t expect Hamas to permanently disappear. 

It is fair to criticize Biden’s decision to withhold arms from Israel, but it is not accurate to say that the president is doing the same thing that Donald Trump was impeached for. Biden’s move, whether we agree with it or not, is justifiable and defensible. Trump’s impoundment of aid to Ukraine was not. 

It isn’t clear what the future of American aid to Israel will be, but I do know a country that can put American artillery shells to good use if they don’t go to Israel. 

From the Racket News