Will Trump pick Marco Rubio as VP prom queen? Seems far from likely

Don’t do it, Marco.

Florida’s nearly invisible U.S. Senator Marco Rubio materialized recently at Mar-a-Lago to lend credence to the idea that he is being seriously considered by Donald Trump as a running mate for the 2024 campaign.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Rubio’s got about as much chance of being Trump’s VP pick as South Dakota governor and proud puppy executioner Kristi Noem has of being picked as the master of ceremonies at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

Trump’s just toying with Rubio and setting him up for some time-delayed vengeance in the form of public humiliation.

What’s amazing is that Rubio doesn’t see it coming. If he did, he certainly wouldn’t have accepted an invitation to be at Mar-a-Lago last weekend, where Trump staged a kind of VP Apprentice event for his amusement.

“His name is coming up a lot for vice president,” Trump said at the gathering while Rubio stood there playing along.

But Trump’s just toying with him.

Rubio sealed his dead-end fate with Trump during the 2016 campaign, warning Republican primary voters that electing Trump as a president would make the United States a “laughingstock.”

Sure, a lot of Republicans have, at one time or another, said terrible things about Trump, and seemed to get back in his good graces.

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance once said that Trump “might be America’s Hitler.” And U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik used to publicly question Trump’s misogynistic treatment of women and cozying up to Moscow.

And now, we’re supposed to imagine that both Vance and Stefanik are also on Trump’s short list of running mates.

I think it speaks more to Trump’s enjoyment of mortifying former enemies, and none more than Rubio. That’s because nobody skewered Trump so precisely and vulgarly as did Rubio, who at one point suggested that Trump’s small hands indicated an undersized manhood.

There was a time when Rubio wasn’t afraid to hit above and below the belt when it came to Trump.

"It’s time to pull his mask off so that people can see what we’re dealing with here,” Rubio had said about Trump. “What we are dealing with here, my friends, is a con artist.

“He is a con artist. First of all, he runs on this idea that he is fighting for the little guy. But he has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy.

“Every business that he’s ever run that’s gone bankrupt. This guy’s bankrupted a casino. How do you bankrupt a casino?"

Rubio imagined that his party’s fascination with Trump during that first presidential campaign was a fleeting thing, and that it was only a matter of time before primary voters would regain their senses and pick him, the obvious heir-apparent to his party.

After all, it was Rubio who was on the cover of Time magazine in 2013 with the bold headline “The Republican Savior.”

So, he piled it on against this poser named Trump, imagining all along that he had nothing to lose.

“Trump repeats over and over that he’ll ‘make America great again.’” Rubio had said. “But if he’s president, we’ll actually be a laughingstock.”

Then Trump got elected and “L’il Marco”, as Trump branded him, disappeared quicker than the graduates of Trump University.

While Rubio’s prophecies about Trump were coming true during his time in office, Rubio sidelined himself by posting daily Bible verses on his social media account and sleep-walking past two Trump impeachment proceedings.

Who had the small hands now?

I guess Rubio imagines that in the intervening years Trump doesn’t remember Rubio’s full-throated apostasy. Or that it’s worth the humiliation that comes with being Trump’s VP — even if it makes you the most hangable man in Washington.

So, it was amusing watching Rubio’s debasement on display again last weekend, in what might just be the first chapter in an epic serving of revenge by Trump.

Reporters asked Rubio whether he would be willing to move from Florida to be Trump's running mate. That question stems from a misconception over a confusing part of the U.S. Constitution that bars Electoral College members from casting their separate votes for president and vice president to candidates who come from the same state as the elector.

This would not bar the theoretical Trump-Rubio ticket. But if that ticket won the 2024 election, the 30 Florida electors who cast the Electoral College votes would be prohibited from casting their separate votes for both Trump and Rubio. That's because those candidates come from the same state as the Florida electors, and those electors can't cast both their votes — one for president, the other for vice president — for Floridians.

In other words, they could vote for Trump, but not Rubio … unless he claimed to be a resident of another state.

This came up in the 2000 Presidential election when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, both Texans, were the winning ballot. To sidestep a legal challenge, Cheney changed his residency to Wyoming before the Electoral College vote.

So, Rubio was asked whether he'd move from Florida to be Trump's running mate, and rather than rule it out, he used the question to send a love note to Trump as he stands trial in the election fraud case in New York.

“I think that before anyone decides to move from their state, you better make sure you don't move to a state where there's not some DA (district attorney) that makes a career after going after Republicans,” Rubio said.

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Well, to be more accurate, going after one “Republican” — the guy you called a “con artist” who was going to make America a “laughingstock.” And that was even before you knew he was paying hush-money to a porn star to hide having sex with her while his wife was home with their infant son.

So, here’s my guess where this is heading.

I can see that Trump, who prizes loyalty more than smarts and possibly more than looks, has a chance here to really stick it to Rubio.

Trump could pick Rubio as his running mate, getting him to commit to leaving his home state if necessary.

And then some time in the waning days of the campaign, Trump could announce that he’s changing his mind on his VP running mate, and using his total control of the party to back his choice all along — his daughter, Ivanka.

It’s a two-fer for Trump, with an exclamation point on settling the score with “L’il Marco.”

Frank Cerabino is a news columnist with The Palm Beach Post, which is part of the Gannett Newspapers chain.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: When choosing a vice president, Marco Rubio has no chance with Trump