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Donald Trump,<\/strong> the twice-impeached, quadruply indicted<\/a> former president, is still figuring out who should come aboard his third presidential ticket. His last running mate, Mike Pence,<\/strong> helped create the permission structure that allowed evangelical Republicans to support a thrice-married adulterer. Pence was obsequiously loyal to Trump throughout his entire time in office. And, in the end, the former veep was \u201crewarded\u201d for his sycophancy on January 6, 2021, when he was whisked away by the Secret Service\u2014\u201cHang Mike Pence<\/a>\u201d chants and all\u2014after refusing to help Trump overthrow democracy.<\/p>\n Since then, Pence has spent a lot of time occupying the wildly uncomfortable space of being neither a Trump supporter nor brave enough to strongly come out against him. \u201cIt should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,\u201d Pence told<\/a> Fox News in March.<\/p>\n But since no one ever learns anything in Trumpworld, what happened to Pence does not appear to have made Trump\u2019s veep gig any less desirable. In fact, Republicans have kicked it into high gear trying to out-pander each other for the job, often debasing themselves on national television in the desperate hopes of getting a rose. Several have been eager to dismiss the criminal cases against Trump, from Marco Rubio<\/strong> claiming<\/a> on ABC that Trump has a \u201clegitimate\u201d claim to presidential immunity to Doug Burgum<\/strong> downplaying<\/a> the New York hush money case on CNN as simply about a \u201cbusiness filing error.\u201d<\/p>\n J.D. Vance,<\/strong> meanwhile, is on track to destroy any residual credibility he has left from once being<\/a> vehemently Never Trump. On Sunday, during the latest stop on his self-debasement tour, Vance told CNN\u2019s Dana Bash,<\/strong> \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody could look at the presidency and the conduct of Donald Trump and say, this is a person who\u2019s somehow antisemitic.\u201d To which Bash rightly replied<\/a>: \u201cHe had dinner with Nick Fuentes,<\/strong> who is an avowed antisemite.\u201d Later, when asked why he deleted a tweet that was critical of Trump, Vance continued<\/a> to dispense with any self-respect: \u201cMy view on Donald Trump\u2014I have been very clear on this\u2014is, look, I was wrong about him. I didn\u2019t think he was going to be a good president, Dana, and I was very, very proud to be proven wrong. It\u2019s one of the reasons why I\u2019m working so hard to get him elected.<\/p>\n Vance, Rubio, and Burgum are hardly the only ones clamoring for a chance to be Trump\u2019s No. 2. South Carolina senator Tim Scott<\/strong> answered<\/a> a question from Meet the Press<\/em>\u2019s Kristen Welker<\/strong> (\u201cWill you commit to accepting the 2024 election results?\u201d) with the non-answer: \u201cAt the end of the day, the 47th president will be Donald Trump.\u201d When Welker pressed him harder, Scott replied, \u201cThat is my statement.\u201d Which makes sense, since saying that the 2020 election was rigged is the ultimate loyalty test for Trump. Think about that for a minute: Openly lying about an election, despite a mountain of evidence proving otherwise, is a way for these men to prove their fealty\u2014as though they\u2019re trapped in an Orwell novel, mindlessly repeating the party line logic of 2+2=5.<\/p>\n Other would-be veeps have done just the same: Representative Elise Stefanik<\/strong> said<\/a> she\u2019d only accept the results \u201cif they\u2019re constitutional,\u201d whatever that means, while Representative Byron Donalds<\/strong> said vaguely<\/a>: \u201cAs long as localities actually follow election laws passed by the legislature, yeah.\u201d When you take a step back here, it\u2019s easy to see how Trump\u2019s veepstakes resemble a kind of extremist political audition, in which the most ass-kissing, reality-refuting contender has the best chance of becoming the former president\u2019s second. \u201cThis is what I think Trump\u2019s gonna do,\u201d as Kevin McCarthy<\/strong> somewhat aptly explained<\/a>: \u201cHe\u2019s gonna play \u2018Apprentice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that all of this GOP jockeying has been politically useful for Trump. That is, as the former president remains confined to a Manhattan courtroom\u2014listening to people like Stormy Daniels<\/strong> and Michael Cohen<\/strong> resurface his sordid past\u2014Trump\u2019s aspiring running mates are acting as mouthpieces for his 2024 campaign where he himself cannot. Some of them\u2014like Donalds, Vance, and Florida senator Rick Scott<\/strong>\u2014 are even playing the role of publicist, attacking the judge and witnesses in the hush money case to save Trump from any reputational damage. Scott spoke<\/a> outside Trump\u2019s Manhattan criminal trial last week, while Vance was on hand<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n Interestingly, this dynamic actually incentivizes Trump to keep the veepstakes going as long as possible. And while it\u2019s certainly feasible that the former president will pick a second before the GOP\u2019s July convention, the longer this contest goes on, the better it\u2019ll be for Trump.<\/p>\n The great irony, of course, is that Trump seems to believe his VP pick is essentially a meaningless formality. \u201cWell, it\u2019s never really had that much of an effect on an election, which is an amazing thing, both election and primary,\u201d he told<\/a> Fox News\u2019s Bret Baier<\/strong> back in January. \u201cThe person that I think I like is a very good person, a pretty standard. I think people won\u2019t be that surprised.\u201d And because we all know that a \u201cvery good person,\u201d in Trump\u2019s eyes, means someone who is very good to<\/em> him,<\/em> America\u2019s next vice president could be far, far<\/em> worse for the country than the likes of Mike Pence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n