Trump suggests he has chosen a vice president: ‘I know who it’s going to be’

Former President Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican presidential nominations, said on Wednesday he knew who he would choose as his running mate.

“I can’t really tell you that,” Trump said when asked about a potential vice president at a Fox News town hall in Des Moines. “I mean, I know who it’s going to be.”

Mr. Trump would not provide details. But if pressed, he said he would be open to mending fences with his rivals in the Republican primaries. And he joked about the remote possibility of selecting Chris Christie, an outspoken critic of Trump who had suspended his presidential campaign earlier on Wednesday.

“I don’t see it,” Trump said. “That would be annoying,” he chuckled, adding, “Christie as vice president.”

Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers told reporters after the town hall that they could not provide more details about the former president’s thinking on the issue or when he made his decision.

“All I know is what I heard tonight,” said Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s top aides. “And I’m not going to categorize it any other way than that.”

Now that Trump has dominated the polls for months and many Republicans view his nomination as a done deal, there is intense speculation about who could join him.

His friends and advisers have discussed the possibility of choosing a woman who could help him win back suburban women who voted for President Biden in 2020, or whether choosing a person of color could help him continue build on the gains he made with Black and Hispanic in those elections. Gentlemen.

This month, a number of people mentioned by the news media as possible running mates traveled to Iowa to campaign for Trump and publicly express their support. They include Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota; Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who hosted events in the state last week; and Kari Lake, a former candidate for Arizona governor who plans to hold an event in Iowa on Friday.