\n<\/p>\n
Marco Rubio<\/strong>\u00a0used to call him a “con artist.” But now, the Florida senator says he’d be happy to be\u00a0Donald Trump’s<\/strong>\u00a0running mate. “I think anybody who would be offered that should be honored,” Rubio said Thursday, amid reports that he’s among the leading contenders in Trump’s veepstakes. He hasn’t “spoken to anybody in the Trump world about it,” he told NBC News, but reiterated, “Anybody who would be offered the chance to serve their country as vice president should consider that an honor.”<\/p>\n Of course, the gig in question is less about serving the public as it is about serving Trump himself, as\u00a0Mike Pence<\/strong>\u00a0learned the hard way. Though obsequious through Trump’s first campaign and term, Pence’s refusal to help his boss overturn the 2020 election results was a “career killer,” as the former president\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0warned him on January 6, 2021. So it seems the chief qualification for a 2024 running mate would be a willingness to do what Pence didn’t that day.<\/p>\n Who’d want such a job? Plenty of Republicans, it turns out. “The list is long,” a Trump adviser\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0NBC News and is said to include\u00a0Tim Scott<\/strong>,\u00a0Elise Stefanik<\/strong>,\u00a0J.D. Vance<\/strong>,\u00a0Kristi Noem<\/strong>, and\u00a0Tulsi Gabbard<\/strong>\u2014the Democrat turned right-wing darling who is also believed to be under consideration as a possible running mate by third-party candidate\u00a0Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/strong>\u00a0(Yes, RFK Jr.’s name has even been floated as a potential contender for Trump: “He’s very Trumpian,” former Bob Dole campaign manager\u00a0Scott Reed<\/strong>\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0this week.)<\/p>\n These figures have already debased themselves on Trump’s behalf or, at the very least, indicated a willingness to do so. But none\u2014not even Scott<\/a>\u2014would better reflect the GOP establishment’s embarrassing surrender to Trump than Rubio. As Trump bullied him as “Little Marco” during the 2016 Republican primary, the Florida senator descended into the muck\u2014speculating, on the campaign trail, about the size of his opponent’s penis. “Have you seen his hands?” Rubio\u00a0asked his supporters<\/a>\u00a0at the time. “And you know what they say about men with small hands?” Trump’s\u00a0debate stage response<\/a>: “I guarantee you there’s no problem.” The two\u00a0feuded<\/a>\u00a0throughout that primary. Trump belittled Rubio as so “desperate” and sweaty that he “looked like he came out of a swimming pool.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Back then, Rubio initially discouraged Republican voters from backing Trump, quipping, “Friends do not let friends vote for a con artist,” before he ended up grudgingly backing Trump in\u00a02016<\/a>, more enthusiastically backing him in\u00a02020<\/a>, and even\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0enthusiastically backing him in 2024\u2014endorsing him in January over their home state governor,\u00a0Ron DeSantis<\/strong>, the day before the Iowa caucus. “I support Trump because that kind of leadership is the ONLY way we will get the extraordinary actions needed to fix the disaster [Joe Biden] has created,” Rubio\u00a0gushed<\/a>. Will that kind of flattery be enough to land him the most humiliating job in politics? “I can’t tell you that really,” Trump, ever the reality TV showman,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0of his veepstakes back in January. But, he added, “I know who it’s going to be.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n