“Loyalty is job one.”
As the vice-presidential sweepstakes continues, Republicans are vying for a slot as former President Donald Trump’s potential running mate. Some of the Republicans interested in joining the campaign, including Senators Marco Rubio and Tim Scott, have taken to publicly expressing their loyalty to Trump in interviews, going so far as to suggest that they would refuse the results of an election where Trump does not win. This rhetoric could suggest what the former president is looking for in a VP.
“This is not about litigating 2020,” Mara Liasson said on Washington Week With The Atlantic last night, in response to clips from interviews with Rubio and Scott. “This is a party whose leadership says they will not accept the results of an election unless they win. The peaceful transfer of power is the bedrock of democracy and one party doesn’t believe in it.”
Meanwhile, recent polls show that Trump holds a credible chance of becoming the 47th president. But with closing arguments in his hush-money trial set to begin on Tuesday, and a verdict from the jury coming thereafter, Trump’s campaign faces the possibility that he could become a convicted felon. Once the outcome of the trial is delivered, Trump and Joe Biden’s campaigns will likely be contending with the reaction of independent voters, who could affect which candidate ends up in the White House.
Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffery Goldberg, to discuss the campaign trail, Justice Samuel Alito’s flags, and more: Josh Gerstein, a senior legal-affairs reporter at Politico; Mara Liasson, a national political correspondent for NPR; Ed O’Keefe, a senior White House and political correspondent for CBS News; and Nancy Youssef, a national-security correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.
Watch the full episode here.
