WASHINGTON — The Donald Trump veepstakes is heating up and Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is right in the middle of it, according to the New York Daily News, the country’s fourth-most widely circulated daily newspaper.
“Sources said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions — one of Trump’s earliest supporters… is under consideration,” wrote the Daily News’s Reuven Fenton and Carl Campanile. “Sessions’ views on immigration match Trump’s.”
Also under consideration, according to the report, are “Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who met with The Donald on Monday at Trump Tower in Manhattan,” retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, “a national security adviser to Trump who has emerged as one of the most buzzed-about veep contenders,” and Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who the Daily News says is actively seeking the VP slot.
Trump has not been very specific about what he is looking for in a running mate, but did recently suggest to MSNBC’s Morning Joe team that someone with inside-the-Beltway experience could be helpful.
“I think I’ll probably go the political route,” he said. “Somebody that can help me with legislation and somebody that can help me get things passed and somebody that’s been friends with the senators and the congressmen and all.”
Those comments are consistent with an interview Trump did with the Washington Post in March, during which he said his VP would need to be “somebody that can walk into the Senate and who’s been friendly with these guys for 25 years, and people for 25 years. And can get things done. So I would 95 percent see myself picking a political person as opposed to somebody from the outside.”
Sessions, who currently heads Trump’s national security advisory committee, fits that description and has for months been the point person for Trump’s overtures to the major Washington, D.C. political players.
But Alabama’s junior senator has been dismissive of the vice presidential speculation in the past.
“I think that would not happen,” Sessions told The Hill. “I have not talked with him about it.”
Sessions has vocal backers in the Republican grassroots, many of whom have supported him for years as a result of his hardline position on immigration and trade.
Other conservative thoughts leaders, including Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and famed economist Thomas Sowell, have also voiced their support for Sessions.
“(S)omeone like canny Senator Sessions could make a very valuable contribution as vice-president, able to pass on to a new president the fruits of his experience in the Washington environment, along with his ability to resist the pitfalls of that environment,” wrote Sewell.
“Really, is there anyone out there who is better than Jeff Sessions on any of these issues? He’s great,” Ingraham said on her nationally syndicated radio program. “I think someone like Sessions could probably attract Democrats, Hispanics who are here legally who are tired of these stupid trade agreements and who have had their own wages undercut by illegal immigration, African Americans, certainly I think a lot of Tea Party people. Sessions is one of the few people to actually say it like it is.”
“He is right on the money,” Limbaugh lauded. “Well spoken and brilliant.”
But Sessions has always dismissed the idea that he should run on a national ticket.
“I always say, unlike my opponents, I know I’m not qualified,” he says with a laugh. “Don’t bet any money on me.”
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