Former President Donald Trump dished about his rumored running mates Wednesday — saying Sen. JD Vance’s beard makes him look “like a young Abraham Lincoln” and saying North Dakota’s abortion ban is a “bit of an issue” for Gov. Doug Burgum.
Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade pressed Trump on his shortlist of vice presidential hopefuls — including Vance’s beard amid reports that the always clean-shaven 45th president doesn’t like facial hair.
“No. I’ve never heard that one,” Trump told KilmeadeWednesday, adding that the Ohio senator’s scruff “looks good.”
“He’s like a young Abraham Lincoln,” Trump added.
Trump, 78, teased that over the “next week or so, I’ll announce” his decision, adding that he’d “love to do it during the convention” next week.
Kilmeade asked Trump whether any other contenders should be added to his list of veep finalists, rattling off names like Vance, Burgum, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC).
But Trump didn’t bite.
“Well, you could,” he said. “I think I’m pretty well set in my own mind. But, you know, you got some good people. And I have changed a little bit.”
Trump indicated that Burgum signing one of the strictest abortion bans in the country — which includes limited exceptions for rape and incest before the first six weeks of pregnancy — last year gives him pause.
“Well, it’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a pretty strong ban. I think Doug is great,” Trump said. “He’s taken a pretty strong stance — or the state has. I don’t know if it’s Doug but the state has. So it’s an issue.”
The real-estate tycoon acknowledged that if he were to select Rubio he would run into complications with the 12th Amendment, which stipulates that both contenders “shall not be an inhabitant of the same state” to receive Electoral College votes from Florida’s delegation. Florida has 30 electoral votes.
Both Trump and Rubio currently claim residency in the Sunshine State.
“You do that and it makes it more complicated. There are people that don’t have that complication. Now it’s fairly easily fixed but you have to do something with delegates or there has to be a resignation,” Trump said.
“So it’s not like picking some people where it’s very easy, where there is none of that,” he added. “Taking delegates is a very risky thing to do.”
Trump campaigned with Rubio in Doral, Fla., on Tuesday. He reflected that Rubio was “great last night, very popular.”
The 45th president also suggested that the firestorm over President Biden’s cognitive abilities would not impact his thinking about a vice presidential decision.
“I don’t care if it’s him or somebody else,” Trump said about Biden being the Democratic nominee. “And these radical Democrats are all radical. Everyone that they’re talking about is a radical left lunatic.”
“And whether it’s Biden or whether it’s somebody else, I think it’s the same.”
At one point, Trump defended the recently unveiled 16-page Republican Party platform that was released Monday that rankled some anti-abortion activists. Critics such as his former Vice President Mike Pence, blasted the move as softening the party’s position on abortion.
“It’s not targeting moderates. It’s common sense. They basically had, in some cases, gay bans,” Trump said of the platform broadly. “I don’t want that. That’s not what we’re about.”
“They had other things that are ridiculous. The abortion issue is much simplified right now,” he said, referencing the fall of Roe v. Wade.