The vice president’s vetting process is, by all accounts, extremely unpleasant. A team of partisan investigators sifts through every possible detail of your personal, political and financial life, looking for potential controversies that could undermine the party’s fortunes and its electoral prospects.
Several years ago, a senator who had undergone the potential running-mate process said it was like having a colonoscopy without anesthesia.
With this in mind, we know that a small group of Republicans are currently facing this intense scrutiny in hopes of joining Donald Trump’s 2024 ticket, and Senator J.D. Vance briefly shed some light on what this entails during an appearance of Fox News yesterday.
JD Vance says Trump’s vice president vetting materials include a question about whether any of the potential candidates “committed a crime” or lied. The irony! pic.twitter.com/0XawMeLzRw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 10, 2024
The Ohio senator, apparently reluctant to exaggerate how far the trial has progressed, said Trump campaign officials have asked for “a number of things.”
Co-host Steve Doocy asked, “Do you like your taxes or something?” before quickly adding with a laugh, “Your criminal background?”
Vance went along as if this was a perfectly normal line of inquiry. ‘I don’t know everything they were asked. Yes, but especially like: ‘Have you ever committed a crime?’ ”
Traditionally, such an exchange would not have been particularly noteworthy. Naturally potential vice presidential candidates from major parties will be asked, as part of the vetting process, whether they have a criminal history.
But as American politics becomes decidedly less normal, there is a complicating factor in 2024: Team Trump wants to know more about the criminal background of potential running mates, despite the fact that Trump himself is now a convicted criminal.
Given the circumstances, it is actually not entirely clear what answer the Republican operation is seeking to the underlying investigation point: the former president is already helping to lead a “team of thugs,” so it remains an open question whether a criminal conviction would increase or decrease a candidate’s chances. (Among the contenders, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds appears to be the only aspiring running mate to have been arrested twice.)
Vance and the Fox hosts failed to acknowledge the irony of the circumstances, but the truth is that Trump would not be able to pass the vetting process of his own campaign operation for national office. Investigators would take one look at the former president’s criminal record — felony convictions, being found liable for sexual abuse, bankruptcies, a fraudulent charity, “university” and business, etc. — and immediately move Trump’s file to the ‘not a chance in hell’. pile.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
