Republicans float Lara Trump to fill Rubio’s Senate seat
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Ms Lara Trump also served as a surrogate for her father-in-law on the campaign trail.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – Senator Rick Scott, who has presented himself as a champion of the Maga right wing in the run-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, threw his support behind Ms Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law, to replace his colleague Senator Marco Rubio.
“Lara Trump would be a great Senator and represent Floridians well,” Mr Scott, who lost his bid to serve as majority leader this week, wrote on social media on Nov 14.
Donald Trump tapped Mr Rubio
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who suffered a humiliating defeat to Trump in the party’s presidential primary race this year, has the power to appoint a replacement for Mr Rubio until 2026, when a special election would be held for the final two years of Mr Rubio’s term.
Ms Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview on Fox Business on Nov 14 that she had not spoken to Mr DeSantis about appointing a replacement, but she nodded to support she had received from other Republican lawmakers, including Senator Katie Britt, and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
“If this were something that I’m asked to do,” she said, “I would seriously consider it.”
“I don’t think you’ll find a person who is more in line with Donald Trump’s America-first values and policies than me,” she said.
Ms Lara Trump, who is married to Trump’s middle son Eric, was one of two hand-picked allies of the president-elect – along with Mr Michael Whatley – to lead a takeover of the Republican National Committee in 2024, gutting the party apparatus and remaking it in their image.
Ms Lara Trump also served as a surrogate for her father-in-law on the campaign trail this year, repeating his lies that the 2020 election had been stolen from him and raising the spectre of Democrats’ cheating in 2024. NYTIMES
