Former First Lady Melania Trump, who has maintained a low profile since her husband launched his 2024 campaign, reportedly has a favored choice for his running mate. According to an exclusive Axios report on the potential members of a “loyalty-first Cabinet” under former President Donald Trump, Melania is supportive of Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality, to join her husband as the running mate for the 2024 campaign.
“Here’s an interesting twist: Melania Trump is an advocate for picking Tucker Carlson, the booted Fox News star. She thinks Carlson would make a powerful onstage extension of her husband, a source close to Trump told us. The former first lady has made few campaign appearances this time around, but a Trump-Carlson ticket might encourage her to hit the trail,” the outlet reported.
Axios added, “However, many people close to Trump have dismissed the idea of Tucker Carlson because they believe he would never choose someone who could surpass him. And Trump’s staff is convinced (correctly) that Carlson can’t be controlled. But the two men talk a lot.”
In a recent episode of The Dispatch Podcast, New York Times columnist Maggie Haberman discussed the former president’s strategy to appoint dedicated supporters to key roles in his administration if he secures a second term. During the interview with host Jamie Weinstein, the topic of rumors about Trump considering Tucker Carlson as his vice president was raised.
“It’s a real thing that I am hearing as a possibility,” Haberman said. “The likelihood of it, I don’t know. I think there will be a pretty professional vetting process, honestly. I know that might sound unbelievable based on what we’ve seen from Trump historically, but Trump’s current political team is the best—at least as a non-incumbent—that he’s had, and there’s just a different level of control.”
Haberman then noted that “the risk with Tucker Carlson and Trump is that Tucker Carlson’s a very big star in his own right, and I’m not sure how Trump would contend with that.”
Recently Trump has been dropping hints that he’d be open to Tucker as his VP:
“I like Tucker a lot; I guess I would,” Trump said during an appearance on “The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show.” “I think I’d say I would because he’s got great common sense. You know, when they say that you guys are conservative, or I’m conservative — it’s not that we’re conservative; we have common sense. We want to have safe borders. We want to have a wall because walls work.”
During a November event, Tucker Carlson made a bold prediction about the 2024 election, suggesting that President Joe Biden and Donald Trump might not compete against each other again. Carlson, characterizing Biden as “senile,” clarified that his statement wasn’t meant to be cruel but rather an observation of the truth. He further commented on Trump facing numerous charges from four distinct indictments, while Biden appeared to be losing ground to Trump in the polls.
“Take the opponent out of the race, and they’re still losing,” he noted. “So, I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen. This is not going to be a race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I would bet my beloved fishing camp in Maine that that is not going to happen. That’s not going to happen.”
“So what will happen?” he asked. “Well, I don’t know. One of, like, 400 distinct other possibilities… pick one.”
“These issues will be forced,” he said. “Soon. Like, in a year. And the road from here to November 2024 is going to be filled with developments nobody in this room could foresee; I can promise you that. So, it’s about to get very serious, for sure. Only the leadership of the world is at stake, which is also, by the way, we now know, the most lucrative possible franchise in human history.”
At that, Carlson asked the audience to let their imaginations “run wild” for a moment.
“What wouldn’t they do?” he asked. “What haven’t they done? What might they do next? How will you prepare yourself for that? Take this seriously. As much as you want to retreat and pretend ‘everything is fine, sit down,’ it’s not fine, okay?”