Donald Trump has the perfect VP in mind if he opts to pursue the presidency.
“I’ve worked with Democrats and I’ve worked with Republicans,” Trump said in an interview that never happened, “but I’ve also worked a lot with this toupee and I’d like it next to me — or at least on top of me — in the White House.”
Real estate mogul and Apprentice star Trump flirted with the prospect of becoming our first orange president in 1999, forming an exploratory committee that October and telling ABC’s Diane Sawyer two months later that he was “totally serious,” but his White House dreams — ebbing and flowing over the past decade — seem to have intensified over the past few months.
Trump spoke at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., for instance. And when he turned up on last Wednesday’s Regis and Kelly and Rush Limbaugh shows, purportedly to promote his NBC series Celebrity Apprentice but also to address the prospect of a long-awaited White House run, he sounded a lot like a candidate.
On Limbaugh, Trump tore into China for “manipulating” its currency to make it harder for America’s “better” products to compete, cheating at the Beijing Olympics and more. “The Chinese are taking advantage of this country,” he said.
He also rolled out the centerpiece of his domestic policy — his plan to build a White House ballroom. Trump told Limbaugh: “When a dignitary comes in from India, from anywhere, they open up a tent. They have a tent. A tent! An old, rotten tent that frankly they probably rented, pay a guy millions of dollars for it, even though it’s worth about $2.”
Trump said issues like that have prompted him to consider a presidential bid now despite his having opted out in the past: “I’ve seen what’s happening to this country,” he told Limbaugh. “We’re no longer respected.”
He then detailed his offer to “one of the biggest people at the White House” to build a $50-100 million ballroom but said the White House never got back to him.
Trump hopes his picking a potential VP eighteen months prior to next September’s GOP convention and even before entering the race himself puts Washington on notice. “This hair piece knows more about Washington than I do,” he said in a quote I made up. “If I run, I guarantee it’ll get people’s attention.”
Dorian Davis is a former MTV HITS star turned Libertarian writer. He’s been published in Business Week, NY Daily News, XY & more. He’s an NYU graduate and National Journalism Center alum. He teaches journalism at Marymount Manhattan College.