WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said he’s open to picking some of his top 2024 Republican rivals as his running mate or cabinet members and said the field “has got some really talented people.”
“I think you have some good people on stage actually. I think you have very talented people. I was impressed with some of them, some of them I’m very good friends with actually,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.
Trump claimed that some of the other Republican candidates, whom he avoided naming so as not to “embarrass them”, called him personally to “say they would like” to be his running mate.
The former president went out of his way to say he had good feelings about entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott, R.S.C., but refrained from explicitly putting them in a possible second administration Trump.
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“I think Vivek did a really good job frankly,” Trump said of Ramaswamy.
Trump also described Scott as a “really good guy” and praised his work on “opportunity zones,” which provides tax incentives for investments in economically distressed communities.
“Tim is very good,” Trump said. “I could see Tim doing something with the administration, but he’s currently campaigning.”
Trump added that beyond Ramaswamy and Scott, there are “other very talented people” he could consider.
One candidate who is unlikely to be one of those “very talented people” is Trump’s former second-in-command, former Vice President Mike Pence. Since leaving the White House, Trump has repeatedly criticized one of his former closest allies for refusing to help him overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump Open to Main GOP Rival as 2024 Vice President