Former President Donald Trump’s running mate may be asked just two questions during interviews for potential Republican candidates, a former Trump administration official said.
Cast CNN’s The Source Former National Security Advisor John Bolton spoke candidly with Caitlin Collins about how President Trump will choose his running mate.
“I think the most important thing for me is my absolute loyalty to him. [Trump] “Unfortunately, the vice presidential interview questionnaire only has two questions,” Bolton said Tuesday.
Two of the questions related to opinions about the January 2021 attack on the Capitol.
“First, do you believe the 2020 election was stolen? And second, ‘If I told you to do what you told Mike Pence to do on January 6th, would you do it?'” Bolton speculated.
A former senior White House aide said candidates who answered “yes” to both questions would move on to the next step.
“And if they say ‘no’, then you’re out of it,” he added.
During the show, Collins mentioned three people widely seen as Trump’s final running mates: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
“If they answered ‘yes’ to both questions, that would be a huge undermining of their integrity,” Bolton said.
Trump is due to announce his running mate next week, with Burgum, 67, and Vance, 39, the front-runners, but Rubio, 53, also has a close chance, sources told The Washington Post on Monday.
But Bolton does not believe Trump has chosen a running mate and is waiting for Democrats and Joe Biden to decide how to proceed with the octogenarian president’s reelection bid.
“The thing we have to remember with Trump is that it’s never a decision until it’s a decision, and sometimes it’s a decision and still not a decision,” Bolton said.
Bolton does not think Trump should announce his running mate at next week’s Republican National Convention, which runs from July 15-18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Nothing is going to be announced from the Republican National Convention other than the vice presidential nominee. Why waste it in a week when Democrats may still be debating whether Joe Biden is eligible to be president?”
Calls for the 81-year-old Biden to withdraw have grown following his disastrous debate performance with Trump and a series of gaffes by the president in the days of political conflict that followed.
Bolton recalled how loyal Pence had been to Trump, but also said he was the 45th president’s ultimate judge, getting the president to do “the right thing” even when others had failed.
“I honestly don’t know if these three guys can do that,” Bolton said, taking a lighter shot at the vice presidential nominees.
Earlier in the show, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) said he believes there is a chance Trump will win the general election in November.
“Donald Trump is going to win this election, probably in a landslide,” the Colorado senator said during an appearance on CNN.
“This campaign is on a very worrying trajectory for the future of our country,” Bennet said, but stopped short of calling on Biden to not seek reelection.
