Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) did little to settle speculation over whether she could be former President Donald Trump’s pick for vice president but instead offered five qualifications needed to fit the job.
While speaking to Fox News host Lawrence Jones on Thursday, Noem said Trump should pick the person who will “help him win” come November.
Noem’s name has appeared on a short list of names likely to be considered by Trump as his 2024 running mate. Names alongside Noem include Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
“I’m all in to do what I can to help the team. He needs somebody that actually is not part of the swamp, I think. He needs a business owner. He needs somebody who’s been a commander in chief, somebody who makes decisions when things get tough,” Noem said. “Those are his qualifications, and he needs to know he can have somebody around him that trusts him and he trusts and will fight.”
“He’s got a lot of jobs to do when you’re president of the United States,” she added. “He needs to have people on his team that fight for him every single day. So, when he picks whoever it is a vice president, I’ll support whoever he picks, and I’m going to make sure that I’m someone who still continues to defend and fight for his policies.”
Noem recently deployed South Dakota National Guard troops to the southern border with the intention of assisting Texas in the defense of its border with Mexico.
She noted that President Joe Biden could fix the border crisis today and “reinstate the policies that President Trump had in place, and we’d be in a whole different situation.”
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“I have deployed National Guard to the southern border to stand with Texas five different times,” Noem said. “We have another group that is going to be going down starting in April. It’s an engineering unit that will be actually building border. It will be building the infrastructure needed to really stop a lot of these military-aged men that are coming into this country for very nefarious reasons.”
The deployment of Noem’s state National Guard will consist of sending 60 soldiers to the southern border over the course of three months.
