OPINION:
With Nikki Haley now RINO roadkill on the South Carolina MAGA highway — only Nikki thinks Nikki is still breathing — a gaggle of pompous pundits are pontificating about who former President Donald Trump should choose as his running mate.
The far better question for observers to ponder is, what qualities might my old boss be looking for in those he will consider? Mr. Trump asked that question in a recent text message to his army of followers. Here are five such possible qualities based on my four years in the White House for you to mull over.
First, Mr. Trump may want his next vice president to be loyal to him. This may be particularly true after Mike Pence’s Jan. 6 betrayal and subsequent, albeit fruitless jabs at Mr. Trump.
This is not to say Mr. Trump wants blind loyalty. One of the reasons I was one of only two senior White House policy advisers to survive from the 2016 campaign to the end of his term is because I was both absolutely loyal yet unafraid to disagree when he asked for my advice.
The first couple of times I offered a contrary view, the boss hammered me hard, likely to see if I would crack. After a while, as I held my ground, he came to trust that my advice was not conditioned on sycophancy or concern about job security. I think he may want that same quality in his next vice president.
Second, in light of far too many White House and Cabinet officials during Mr. Trump’s term who failed this next test, Mr. Trump may well expect his next vice president to be absolutely loyal to the MAGA agenda. This was a second reason why I think I survived and flourished in the Trump White House — the boss and I were in sync on virtually every MAGA principle.
At the top of Mr. Trump’s agenda is the importance of Buy American, Hire American in defending our manufacturing base and boosting blue-collar wages, the power of tariffs to defend America against the unfair trade practices of China and many of our so-called allies, the overwhelming need both for a secure southern border and mass deportations; and the senselessness of sending young Americans off to lose their limbs or lives in endless wars.
In the first Trump administration, far too many advisers and bureaucrats thought they had been elected president. They actively sought to undermine Mr. Trump’s MAGA agenda.
You know their names by now from all of the CNN “exposes” of rebellion within the Trump ranks:
Gen. James Mattis and Mark Esper at the Department of Defense; Christopher Wray (still) at the FBI; Bill Barr at the Department of Justice; Steve Mnuchin at the Department of the Treasury; Gary Cohn and Larry Kudlow deep inside the tent at the National Economic Council; Rob Porter as White House staff secretary; John Kelly and Mick Mulvaney as chiefs of staff; John Bolton and H.R. McMaster at the National Security Council; and even Mr. Pence himself, not because he opposed the Trump agenda but because his own chief of staff, Marc Short, was at once a Koch network puppet and puppet master of Mr. Pence himself.
At different times, I had to fight every single one of them in defense of the Trump agenda. Mr. Trump’s next vice president seems unlikely to be cut from the same cloth.
Third, Mr. Trump may want his next vice president to be a master of the policy process. Over my four years in the Trump White House, I had to move quickly up a steep learning curve to move the boss’s executive orders and presidential memoranda in what I would come to refer to as “Trump Time.” Yet I had to move these powerful policy instruments through a bureaucratic maze riddled with needless layers of review and deep state sappers.
My old boss will no doubt remember the difficulties and delays he faced, particularly early on with his tariffs, getting the MAGA agenda through that deep state gantlet. Accordingly, he may put a high value on a vice president who understands that process from Day One and who will be at the vanguard of swiftly working that process.
Fourth, Mr. Trump will surely want his next vice president to be a master of the media. As I learned in the White House, it’s easy to go on Trump-friendly media like Sean Hannity’s show. Yet it’s flat-out treacherous and possibly even career-ending walking into the lion’s dens of CNN or MSNBC or the Sunday shows of Never Trump ABC, CBS and NBC.
If you don’t believe 10 seconds of saying stupid stuff in front of a TV camera can end a career, watch the clip of Mr. Mulvaney, then the acting chief of staff, dig himself a “quid pro quo” grave on Ukraine. Or cringe at Sean Spicer forever crippling his tenure as press secretary on his first day on the job with an inaugural “largest audience ever” gaffe.
Know this: The nanosecond Mr. Trump announces his VP pick, he or she will have to be seasoned enough to weather what will be a withering storm and a glaring, often blinding media spotlight. Mr. Trump’s vice president must be out of the gate ready for that challenge.
Finally, Mr. Trump may also want his next VP to be as tireless a campaigner as Mr. Trump is himself. Mike “Et Tu, Brute” Pence not only readily embraced the campaign trail, but his finest moments were his debates with an out-of-control Tim Kaine in 2016 and an arrogant and condescending Kamala Harris in 2020 — that pesky Democratic fly on Mr. Pence’s head notwithstanding.
Mr. Trump will likely demand no less of his next VP. I’m sorry it won’t and can’t be Mike, whom I liked but folded under pressure. Of course, I’m not sorry it won’t be Nikki Haley either.
• Peter Navarro served in the Trump White House as manufacturing czar and chief China hawk. This piece originally appeared at http://peternavarro.substack.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.