Former Ohio Sen. JD Vance will become vice president by the end of this month, but an upcoming book reveals that the job almost went to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.
According to CNN Business, “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power” – an upcoming book by Politico National Political Reporter Alex Isenstadt coming out on March 18 – will include information about Trump’s consideration of Bartiromo for VP.
While Isenstadt reported that Trump seriously considered the longtime journalist to be his running mate, Trump’s team talked the now president-elect out of the idea. Isenstadt explained that Bartiromo became a Trump favorite after she defended him and conducted “numerous softball interviews with him over the years, including his first on-air sit-down following the 2020 election, for which she had given his team a heads-up on her questions ahead of time,” per CNN.
Bartiromo graduated from New York University, where she studied journalism and economics. She covered business and the economy for 30 years and in 1995 became the first journalist to report live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange daily, according to her website.
During her 20-year tenure as the face of CNBC, she launched the “Squawk Box” morning program and more. Before joining CNBC, she worked for five years as a producer, writer and assignment editor with CNN Business News.
In January 2014 she joined Fox Business Network as global markets editor. She is the anchor of Mornings with Maria, Sunday Morning Futures and Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street Week.
Throughout her career, Bartiromo has received several awards, including two Emmys. However, she’s also been involved in some controversies, such as her support of election fraud conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election, according to the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters for America.
During a flight to Butler, Pa., where Trump survived an assassination attempt, he was “dead serious” about choosing Bartiromo as his vice president, Isenstadt wrote. He argued that she would help relationships with Wall Street donors and was comfortable on TV.
Meanwhile, his team argued that there wasn’t enough time to vet her as thoroughly as they had other candidates. Isenstadt said chief of staff Susie Wiles “put an end to the conversation,” CNN reported.
As Trump campaigned for the White House in December 2023, reports indicated that incoming First Lady Melania Trump favored another candidate linked to Fox News to be her husband’s running mate: Tucker Carlson. Trump and the former Fox News host got together for an interview that streamed on social media platform X and were seen out in public together at a UFC event alongside Kid Rock.
According to CNN, incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung “did not directly address the claims regarding Bartiromo.”
He said Vance “was the perfect choice to be President Trump’s running mate. There is nobody who is a better and stronger defender of the America First agenda, and he will continue to be a leader of the movement for years to come.”
In an interview with Vance this summer, Bartiromo asked him about critics who said he was the “wrong pick” to be Trump’s running mate, Newsweek reported. Vance, a former critic of Trump said: “All I can do is go out there and prosecute the case against [Vice President] Kamala Harris and remind people that things were more prosperous and peaceful when Trump was president.”