House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) might have yet again criticized Donald Trump for “insulting” women, his “offensive comments,” and his proposed Muslim ban, but she’s now the frontrunner to be his running mate in 2024.
According to a story from NBC News, Trump values Stefanik for the loyalty she’s shown him since she leveled those critiques of him as a candidate, as well as for her political acumen.
From the report:
During a candlelit dinner with Mar-a-Lago members in late December, former President Donald Trump walked around the table as the conversation turned to one of the biggest decisions he’d have to make should he become the Republican nominee: Whom should he pick to be his running mate?
That’s when Rep. Elise Stefanik, the hard-charging upstate New York Republican, came up, according to a person at the dinner table. Attendees around Trump raved about her viral moment just weeks before, when she grilled three university presidents at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus.
At the thought of Stefanik as a possible choice for vice president, Trump nodded approvingly.
“She’s a killer,” Trump said, according to the person at the event.
Ever since then, Trump and a growing group of allies have started to look more closely at Stefanik as a running mate, according to eight people familiar with the matter, including people in Trump’s orbit, Stefanik fundraising bundlers and former Trump administration officials.
After her predecessor, former representative Liz Cheney, was removed from office for criticizing Trump’s actions following the 2020 election, Stefanik was able to secure her place on the Republican leadership in the House in 2021.
In contrast, Stefanik has not wavered in her reluctance to certify the results of the 2020 election and has made it clear that she will back Trump in the event that he disputes the results of this year’s election.
In 2015, Stefanik said that Trump’s remarks “hurt” the party’s ability to appeal to women and denounced him for his “insulting” treatment of Megyn Kelly, who moderated the first Republican primary debate of the cycle. Trump’s misogynistic comments on the widely publicized Access Hollywood tape were later described by her as “inappropriate, offensive, and just wrong.”
She also expressed opposition to Trump’s signature policy promise — building a wall along the United States’ southern border with Mexico — and declared “I don’t think that’s who we are” after Trump called for a ban on Muslim immigration into the country.
