Donald Trump
Donald TrumpREUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Former US President and frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential race Donald Trump is looking for a running mate to serve as his Vice President, and one of the top candidates under consideration is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R, NY), NBC News reported.

Trump reportedly praised Rep. Elise Stefanik (R, NY) during a dinner at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month. The former President was discussing the difficult decision of choosing a running mate when Stephanik's name was raised.

Trump nodded and said "She’s a killer" at the suggestion that he choose Stefanik as his running mate.

Multiple sources have said that the Trump campaign has examined very closely the possibility of choosing Stefanik to be his Vice President over the last month.

Former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon said that "Stefanik is at the top" of the list of possible vice presidential candidates.

Stefanik rose to national prominence during a Congressional hearing in early December in which she grilled the Presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT on the rise in antisemitic incidents on college campuses in the wake of the Hamas massacre of October 7.

During the hearing, Stefanik asked former Harvard President Gay whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Harvard’s rules regarding bullying and harassment.

Gay would not answer the question with a simple “yes” or “no” even as Stefanik continued to press her to do so, and would only say that calling for an “intifada” against Israel “is at odds with the values of Harvard,” and that calls for genocide depend on the "context."

UPENN President Liz Magill resigned shortly after the hearing, while Gay resigned as President of Harvard about a month later following both the hearing and accusations of widespread plagiarism in her published articles.

Stefanik is also seen as loyal to Trump, a key factor for the former President.