With the start of the Republican Party's presidential nominating convention less than six weeks away, former President Donald Trump's campaign is picking up the pace in vetting the potential running mates.
The process has started in earnest with documents being requested from several prospective contenders for the 2024 GOP vice presidential nomination, sources on Wednesday confirmed to Fox News. They add that paperwork is being exchanged and note that they are entering a different phase of the running mate search.
The sources say that among those being vetted by the Trump campaign are three names that often come up – North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, and Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
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But people close to the campaign and to the former president add that the list is longer than just those three names. They say that also being vetted are Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina, Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida and Elise Stefanik of New York, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who served as Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Trump administration.
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Asked if the Trump campaign had reached out to him regarding vetting, Donalds in an interview Tuesday night with Fox News Digital in Philadelphia, said "I'm not going to comment on that. I'm going to leave that one alone."
Highly placed sources say the list of potential running mates will continue to winnow down, but it is fluid.
As for the timing of the Trump decision on his running mate, the sources say the former president likely won't announce his choice until just before or even during the convention, which starts on July 15 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
That's in line with a handful of interviews in which the former president has said there's "probably a pretty good chance" that he'll announce his running mate "in Milwaukee."
Asked to comment on the reporting from Fox News and other news organizations regarding the vetting process, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said "anyone claiming to know who or when President Trump will choose his VP is lying, unless the person is named Donald J. Trump."
