NEW YORK, NY – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump said Tuesday that Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is indeed on his short list of potential vice presidential running mates.
“Jeff Sessions is certainly somebody I would consider,” Trump said at a news conference in New York.
Sessions has been rumored to be a top pick for the vice president position ever since he became the first senator to publicly endorse Trump in February. Since then, Sessions has been leading Trump’s national security advisory committee.
Sessions told The Daily Caller Friday he does not expect to be asked, but added, “If I could help him in some way — and he were to ask me — I would consider it like any other citizen should.”
“Can I help? Can I help the country do better if I accepted or not?” Sessions said, hypothetically walking through what his thought process would be. “But I don’t expect that to happen. And I’ve certainly had no discussions with him about it.”
Sources first told the New York Post last week that Sessions is among the names on Trump’s VP “short list.”
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 continues to downplay the possibility of him joining the Trump ticket.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he concluded in Friday’s Daily Caller interview. “And I think he can get a better candidate.”
