Secret’s Out About What Trump’s Potential VP Pick Seen Doing at Mar-A-Lago
Donald Trump, a former president, hasn’t officially declared a running partner for his 2024 campaign, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t chosen someone. According to earlier reports, the 45th president would probably pick a female running mate, and a number of names have been floated.
However, one of those names—former Republican candidate for governor of Arizona Kari Lake—visits Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida so frequently that she is considered to be “practically living” there.
“Kari Lake is there all the time,” an unnamed source told People magazine. “There’s a suite there that she practically lives in.”
A Lake representative, however, denied that the reports were true.
“Kari Lake often speaks at events all over the country in support of America First candidates and organizations; and when she does have the honor of being invited to speak at the beautiful Mar-a-Lago, she overnights at Hilton properties in Palm Beach with her loving husband of 25 years,” said a statement from a Lake adviser to People.
This past spring, despite his legal troubles, Donald Trump continued to reside at his members-only Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. And according to a political source, he was joined at the club by Republican firebrand Kari Lake, who has been seen there frequently lately.
According to the source, Lake, a former television anchor who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Arizona and claimed, like Trump, that the election was rigged against her, spent a large amount of time at Mar-a-Lago during its open season. (During the summer, most people leave the property, including Trump, who goes to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.)
Following Trump’s official announcement of his 2024 presidential campaign in November and after sources told PEOPLE that Lake has been contending for the position of his running mate, Lake is reportedly making appearances at Mar-a-Lago. Trump “may be considering” this, according to insiders, as it may be one of the reasons she frequently attends meetings at Mar-a-Lago.
“She is working the deal. She wants something bigger, fast, to compensate for her loss in Arizona,” one source previously said.
Trump gave Lake his support in the 2022 governor contest, and she has sought to project the former president’s image onto herself by downplaying the results of both the presidential election in 2020 and her own gubernatorial election. (She has filed a lawsuit against Arizona officials asking them to annul the verdict and declare her the winner.)
Trump is currently embroiled in a number of legal battles, most notably one that is still pending in which he is being charged with numerous federal crimes related to his handling of top-secret government materials.
The former president was charged with 37 crimes earlier this month: 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information (a violation of the Espionage Act), one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count each of withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document during a federal investigation, plot to conceal, and making false statements and representations.
