Matt Gaetz says Trump should pick Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Kristi Noem as his running mate to get votes from women who don't like him
- Matt Gaetz thinks Trump should pick Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Kristi Noem for his 2024 running mate.
- Gaetz said Trump should run with a woman to get votes from women who don't like him.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz says he's told former President Donald Trump to pick a woman as his running mate if he wants to win in 2024.
"What I've said to President Trump is like, you have to create a permission structure where women who do not like you vote for you again," Gaetz said on the conservative "Timcast IRL" podcast on Friday.
Gaetz added that he thought the "reason Trump won in 2016" is because "a whole lot of women who didn't like him voted for him" instead of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Gaetz named Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary, as his pick for Trump's 2024 running mate. The Florida congressman praised Sanders for her "directness" and her move to ban TikTok on state government devices.
"She's the kind of person I look at," Gaetz said.
Sanders, for her part, avoided endorsing Trump directly in an interview on Fox News on January 15.
"I love the President, have a great relationship with him. I know our country would be infinitely better off if he was in office right now instead of Joe Biden but right now my focus isn't 2024," Sanders said on "Fox News Sunday."
Gaetz also named South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as a possible Trump running mate, calling her a "pretty stellar" alternative to Sanders.
The Florida congressman did not say if Trump had responded positively to his suggestions. Representatives for Trump, Gaetz, Sanders, and Noem did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.
Trump announced on November 15 that he is running for president again in 2024. This is his third presidential run: He won his first race against Clinton in 2016 and lost to President Joe Biden in 2020.
In October, The New York Times Magazine journalist Robert Draper told the Daily Beast that Trump has "repeatedly" discussed choosing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as his running mate. Draper said this is because Greene has been "unflaggingly loyal" to the former president through a litany of scandals and lawsuits.
In January, The Daily Beast also reported, citing two sources who have spoken to Trump and an unnamed GOP strategist, that Trump has mostly been considering female running mates for his 2024 campaign. GOP Reps. Elise Stefanik and Greene, as well as former Democratic congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, have been floated as candidates, per the Daily Beast.