J.D. Vance ultimately became a wildly popular surrogate in the 2024 Election.
But a new rumor claims that he was not the pick Trump had really hoped for.
And J.D. Vance’s jaw dropped to the floor after hearing this one rumor about who Trump wanted as his running mate.
A new book claims Trump wanted a Fox News celebrity to join his ticket
Vice President J.D. Vance was heavily criticized during the 2024 Election cycle after being selected as Trump’s running mate by Democrats and RINOs alike, with the media fueling those flames.
By the time Election Day came around, Vance had risen to become one of the most effective surrogates for the Trump campaign as he was wildly successful in fending off a volatile and malicious media during interviews.
The decision to tap in J.D. Vance as his running mate turned out to be a grand slam for Trump’s 2024 ambitions.
But a book – set to be released in March – suggests that Vance was not the selection Trump originally wanted.
A national political reporter for Politico, Alex Isenstadt, covered Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign throughout the election cycle.
He is also well known as another run-of-the-mill anti-Trump hack job at the D.C. located publication.
In his upcoming book titled Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power, Isenstadt claims that Trump had his eyes set on someone else for his running mate – Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.
Bartiromo is the popular host of the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures, as well as Mornings with Maria on Fox Business.
Isenstadt claimed that Trump was only interested in recruiting Bartiromo as his running mate, but had to be forced off the decision due to the lack of necessary time available to vet her prior to his July RNC Vice Presidential announcement.
“[Trump] was dead serious about Bartiromo and was making the case for her during the flight to Butler (Pennsylvania),” he wrote in his book. “She was great with the big-donor Wall Street types and she knew how to do TV, Trump told his team.”
Trump’s team outright rejects Politico reporter claims in new book
In his book, Isenstadt further claimed that Trump’s selected White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, who had been working as one of his campaign’s co-managers at the time, was the one that shut the idea down.
He alleged that Wiles fired back at Trump saying that there “was no time to vet Bartiromo, as they had spent months doing with other candidates.”
He wrote that Trump was a huge fan of Bartiromo and her shows, especially after he had participated in multiple interviews with the Fox News host.
But Isenstadt’s book has already been exposed to be heavily reliant on rumors and not firsthand accounts.
This claim about the alleged Vice Presidential debacle within the Trump campaign has been repeatedly used as a way to spark interest in his book leading up to its March release.
Trump’s transition team immediately shot down the rumors and claims, arguing that J.D. Vance was the perfect selection as Trump’s Presidential ticket companion.
“Vice President-elect Vance was the perfect choice to be President Trump’s running mate,” fired back Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung in a prepared statement. “There is nobody who is a better and stronger defender of the America First agenda, and he will continue to be a leader of the movement for years to come.”
There is no possible way to verify whether this claim by Isenstadt was just another instance of fake news or an idea that Trump had merely thrown at the wall.
But the selection he ran with – former Ohio Senator J.D. Vance – turned out to be one of the best campaign decisions he has ever made to date.
And it is a decision that was ultimately praised by all corners of the Right.