by Sharon Rondeau
(May 6, 2024) — On Monday’s “The Benny Show” hosted by Benny Johnson, a donor meeting held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate this past weekend might have provided a hint as to who the 45th president and 2024 presumptive Republican presidential nominee will choose as his running-mate.
Johnson, who posted a photo he took from the event on TruthSocial which Trump reposted, mused that Trump’s choice is among those on the stage in the photo and suggested Trump’s reposting could be viewed as confirmation of the same.
According to a May 2 Bloomberg report, Johnson said, Trump has narrowed his selection to four candidates: U.S. Senator from Florida Marco Rubio; U.S. Senator from South Carolina Tim Scott; North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; and U.S. Senator from Ohio JD Vance.
In his discussion Johnson played clips from Fox & Friends, Fox News Sunday, NBC News and “Sunday Morning Futures” hosted by Maria Bartiromo in which Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Scott and Vance were interviewed.
Stefanik told Bartiromo she was honored to be on the list but said there are many gifted individuals in the Republican field who could serve.
Similarly, Rubio said the Republican Party has a tremendous amount of “talent” which could be distributed between the vice-presidency and “cabinet” positions.
Scott suggested to NBC that Trump would make his choice “in the next 60 days” but said he had not spoken with Trump about the possibility of his own candidacy.
“We think it’s Rubio,” Johnson declared at 11:45 a.m., after having earlier said Rubio would not be his personal first choice.
As The Post & Email has reported after Fox News’s John Roberts raised the question with Rubio in March, vice-presidential candidates from the same state as Trump, whose legal residency is Florida, could be barred if challenges are brought invoking the 12th Amendment.
Additional names floated were former 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Hawaii Congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who also attempted to win the Republican nomination but suspended his campaign
At one point Johnson speculated that “Rubio drops out” (of the Senate), “potentially changes residency, and joins Donald Trump” on the Republican ticket.
Further to that, Johnson suggested Trump’s recent meeting with DeSantis was to discuss DeSantis’s own replacement of Rubio in the Senate if that were to occur.
At 11:48, Johnson elaborated on an article in Axios, which reportedly obtained leaked “live” audio of Trump responding privately to a long list of VP possibles including many of the above-named but also U.S. Senator from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn, U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), and others.
Johnson invited viewers to comment on who their VP choice might be.
Early in the broadcast’s live chat, one commenter opined that neither Ramaswamy nor Rubio is a “natural born Citizen,” an argument often made at The Post & Email given their parents were not U.S. citizens when they were born within the U.S., Ramaswamy in Ohio and Rubio in Florida.
At 11:52, he commented on Judge Juan Merchan’s latest threat, made Monday morning, to jail Trump for defying his gag order in the Manhattan DA’s case claiming he committed falsification of records regarding a payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Johnson then brought on former Trump administration official, former federal prosecutor and public defender Kash Patel to discuss what might happen if Merchan acts on his threat.
Patel’s opinion was that Trump’s legal team would immediately appeal the order and that DA Alvin Bragg and Merchan are both “evil” in harboring an insatiable desire to hobble Trump’s campaign and draw out the trial as long as possible.
They also discussed the “classified documents” case against Trump led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who revealed to a federal court Friday that his office apparently mishandled documents collected from Mar-a-Lago during an August 2022 FBI raid.
Smith’s conduct, Patel claimed, should result in prosecution and resembles the outcome of the case he brought against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who Patel said was considering challenging Barack Obama for the presidency in 2012 but whose political career was subsequently “destroyed” by accusations of accepting improper gifts while in office.
In 2016 the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a “corruption” conviction Smith secured over McDonnell which cost McDonnell a reported $28 million to defend.
Patel’s interview concluded at 12:24.
Originally addressed to the real DJT on Truth Social prior to April 4, 2024:
Just so you (DJT) know, whomever you choose as the Article II vice president (vPOTUS), please know that that person must be a natural born Citizen. A natural born Citizen is a person born in one of the 50 states to two (2) parents who are already U.S. citizens. The following individuals who are NOT eligible for the vPOTUS are Ramaswamy, Haley, Rubio, Cruz, Gabbard, and Jindal or anyone else who was not born in the U.S.A. to two (2) U.S. citizen parents. Choose your vPOTUS running mate wisely; if not, you will disenfranchise a huuuuuuge voting segment who would have otherwise voted for you. Just so you know, I am one of those you will disenfranchise if you choose a non-natural born Citizen as your running mate. Feel free to debate me on the natural born Citizen requirement for the U.S. Constitution, Article II specification
Article ll Section 1 Clause 5 of the US Constitution states as one of it provision for one to be US President or VP is Natural Born US Citizen . No man made law or Constitution can make one a Natural Born Citizen of any country . NBC is the law of Nature or God’s law ! The US Congress tried to change the requirements for US President or VP no less than 8 times between 2002 and 2008 ! Why ? Answer Because the US Congress knew Berry Soetoro aka Barack hussein Obama did not meet Constitutional requirements for US President set forth when the US Constitution was ratified in 1789 !