Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is becoming a leading candidate to join former President Donald Trump on the Republican presidential ticket, according to a report from the New York Times.
Three people “with direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s thinking” told the outlet that Cotton is on a list of five people considered favorites for the coveted vice presidential nomination, according to the report. Joining the Arkansas Republican are Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and J.D. Vance (R-OH).
The report comes after Trump’s Thursday rally in the Bronx, New York, where he told a local TV station that Rubio, Vance, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) were among “many people who would do a really fantastic job.”
Trump has privately said he sees Cotton as “a reliable and effective communicator in cable news interviews,” according to the report. The former president also reportedly admires that the senator served in Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the Army and that both men are graduates of Ivy League schools.
Fox News’s Bret Baier asked Cotton, 47, about his vice presidential aspirations on Monday’s Special Report. The anchor told the senator that Hugh Hewitt is “always putting chips on you” to be the Republican vice presidential nominee. The radio host wrote a column for the outlet in February, arguing, “Cotton is a realist who relentlessly stays on message and avoid mistakes and takes it right at his political opponents —the keys to a successful V.P. candidate.”
However, Cotton did not draw much attention to the notion that Trump could pick him
“No, the president and the campaign has not reached out to me,” Cotton said. “I suspect only Donald Trump knows who’s really on his short list. When we do talk, we talk about what it’s going to take to win this election in November, to elect President Trump to another term in the White House and elect a Republican Congress so we can begin to repair the damage the Joe Biden’s presidency has inflicted on this country.”
While the report provides some insight into Trump’s vice presidential decision-making, it also noted that “the people close to Mr. Trump cautioned that his vice-presidential preferences might change.”
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Trump said earlier this month that he would select a running mate “probably not too much before” the Republican National Convention, which is slated to begin July 15 in Milwaukee.
Cotton has represented Arkansas in the Senate since 2015 after he unseated two-term Democratic incumbent Mark Pryor. He entered Congress as a representative of the state’s 4th Congressional District two years earlier.
