Former President Donald Trump revealed Monday he would consider ditching Mike Pence for Florida’s tough Gov. Ron DeSantis as his 2024 presidential election running mate.
“Sure I would … I would certainly consider Ron,” Trump, 74, told Fox Business‘ Stuart Varney in a phone interview Monday.
“I was at the beginning of Ron,” he said of the 42-year-old former Navy officer who graduated both Yale and Harvard Law School.
“I was the first one to endorse him when he came out as a congressman that a lot of people didn’t know, and my endorsement helped him tremendously,” Trump said.
“And I know him very well. He’s a great guy,” Trump added.
Still, he left the pick open — though without mentioning his former vice president, Pence, who last week admitted that he didn’t see “eye to eye” with Trump over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which he called “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol.”
Instead, Trump told Varney there were “other great people that have done a great job with states” whom he could pick as his Republican running mate.
“And you don’t see that with the Democrats — they kept their states closed and locked down, and the schools are closed. It’s just absolutely outrageous how they get away with it,” he said.
The 45th commander-in-chief did not correct Varney when he said it was clear he was “considering running in 2024” — then chuckled when pointing out that “so many people are saying that I should run” in 2022 for either the House or Senate.
“I think that’s highly unlikely,” he said, seemingly confirming he has his eyes on only the White House.
Trump also railed against social media giants censoring conservative voices, again singling out Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for sucking up to him when he was president before banning him from the platform for two years.
“You know, Zuckerberg would come to the White House to have dinner with me. Couldn’t have been nicer. ‘Sir, you’re number one, congratulations, you’re number one on Facebook.’ All of this crap,” Trump recalled.
“It’s amazing, actually, when you think about it,” he said of the about-face in banning him.
“These are bad people, these are dangerous people. It’s gotta be stopped because our country is in danger,” Trump said of censorship by big tech.
“And they will be stopped eventually,” he predicted of the “radical-left crazy people destroying our country.”
“Who are they to tell us what ideology we should be talking about?” he asked, calling the companies a “disgrace to our country” that have left “people in this country very, very angry.”
“We don’t have free speech anymore,” he added.
The former president also went after another new form of tech — calling bitcoin “a scam.”
“I want the dollar to be the currency of the world,” he said, part of his Make America Great Again slogan.
