Who would Donald Trump pick as his 2024 running mate? He's open to some of his Republican rivals

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said he's open to picking some of his 2024 Republican primary rivals as his running mate or cabinet members and said the field “has some very talented people.” 

“I think you have some good people on the stage actually. I think you have some very talented people. I’ve been impressed by some of them, some of them I’m very friendly with actually,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures”. 

Trump claimed some of the other Republican candidates, who he avoided naming to not “embarrass them,” called him personally to “say they’d like to” be his running mate. 

The former president went out of his way to say he had good impressions of entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., but stopped short of explicitly putting them within a potential second Trump administration. 

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“I think Vivek has done a very good job frankly,” Trump said of Ramaswamy. 

Trump also described Scott as a “very good guy” and praised his work on “opportunity zones,” which provides tax incentives for investments in economically distressed communities. 

"Tim is very good,” Trump said. “I could see Tim doing something with the administration, but he’s right now campaigning.”

Trump added that beyond Ramaswamy and Scott, there are “other very talented people,” that he could consider.

A candidate likely not among those "very talented people" is Trump's former second-in-command, former Vice President Mike Pence. Since leaving the White House, Trump has on multiple occasions criticized one of his closest former allies for refusing to assist his efforts to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.