Or loose it…
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy believes there is only one way for Donald Trump to lose to Joe Biden next year.
The ousted House speaker is advising Trump to avoid turning his 2024 campaign into a “revenge tour” and instead suggesting he run an optimistic campaign about the future of the United States, rather than the 2020 election.
“But this is a bigger question for Trump: If his campaign is about renew, rebuild and restore, he'll win. If it's about revenge, he'll lose,” McCarthy told journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin at this week's DealBook Summit in Manhattan. “The only person that's going to determine that is … him.” (RELATED: Report: McCarthy Likely To ‘Get The Hell Out' Of Congress)
The former congressional leader then suggested a running mate for Trump if he wins the nomination.
National Review has more information on McCarthy's VP pick, who was previously mentioned at the DealBook Summit:
Asked at the New York Times DealBook Summit who would be the “right person” to serve as Trump's vice president should he win reelection in 2024, McCarthy chose Haley over three other options presented by the Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, and Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.).
“If I was a political person, and I was going to advise somebody, you're going to pick the vice president that's about addition, not subtraction. So you're not going to pick somebody that already equates to you,” McCarthy said at the event. “Now if I was picking for purely political decisions, what it looks like today is the anti-Trump vote is going to Nikki Haley.”
The California congressman, who was ousted from the House speakership in early October, argued that Trump needs to pick a running mate who can win over Republican and independent voters who do not support him for a second term. “If that person is with you, maybe they'd be with you too,” he said.
This is why Haley would be the perfect choice, according to McCarthy. “Well, right now I think it would be Nikki Haley, in my view,” he responded when asked who that person would be. “But the question is: Who you select, will they serve? So that's another question you have to have. And it's about addition.”
For her part, Haley remains focused on winning the Republican Party's nomination for president. Although she hasn't targeted Trump much, she's managed to win over the GOP's Never Trump faction and attract major donors from Wall Street. Additionally, Haley recently secured support from the well-financed Koch political network. (RELATED: New Poll Shows 1 Republican Leading Biden Beyond The Margin Of Error – And It's Not Trump)
Last week, The New York Times reported that Haley received an unexpected call from Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. According to a source familiar with their conversation, Dimon praised Haley's knowledge of policy details and unbiased approach to complex issues.
Dimon ended the call by urging Haley to keep it up.
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