Former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump has stated that he has already decided upon his pick for Vice President in the 2024 election, but there’s still one more thing that he needs to do: tell them.
During Trump’s stop in Philadelphia on his campaign tour on Saturday, a reporter asked if he had decided on a running mate. He responded, “in my mind, yeah,” and added that “nobody knows” who the choice is. Per Trump, whoever it is will “most likely” be at Thursday’s CNN presidential debate in Atlanta, the first against his Democrat opponent President Joe Biden.
“We have a lot of people coming to the debate,” he said. “I think we have a lot of people coming.”
In an interview for TIME’s 2024 election coverage, the former President claimed that many people have been asking to be his Vice President.
“Everybody wants to work for me. And a lot of people say, ‘Oh, would he work for me? Oh, would he be a Vice President? Would he accept?’ Vice President? I’ve got everybody in the nation calling me begging me to be vice president,” he told TIME.
Narrowing down the options, though, potential vice presidential candidates include North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Mike Pence, and Senators Tim Scott and Nikki Haley.
In 2016, Trump strategically chose Mike Pence as his running mate—a fiscal and social conservative who comforted the more traditional Republicans and widened Trump’s support base. The question is whether he will use a similar strategy this time around, or double down with his already devoted MAGA base.
This is not the first time Trump has enjoyed toying with the media over his VP decision. In January, Trump had a very similar answer for Fox News moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum when they inquired about who he was thinking of choosing to join him.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said at a Fox News Town Hall in Des Moines ahead of the Iowa caucuses. “But I know who it’s going to be.”
According to NBC, Trump’s senior adviser Brian Hughes said that the campaign’s top criterion for selecting a running mate “is a strong leader who will make a great President for eight years after his next four year term concludes.”
Though the running mate could likely be at next week’s presidential debate, Trump has yet to formally announce his pick for Vice President at the Republican National Convention next month, which takes place from July 15 until July 18 in Milwaukee.
