Corker withdraws his name as possible Trump running mate

Published 10:59 am Wednesday, July 6, 2016

<span class="RACopyBody">WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Bob Corker has withdrawn his name as a possible running mate for Donald Trump, his spokesman confirms.</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">Spokesman Micah Johnson confirmed the comments that the Tennessee senator made in an interview with The Washington Post published Wednesday in which the senator said "there are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president" and "I think I’m far more suited for other types of things."</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">Corker’s withdrawal comes just a day after he joined Trump at a rally in North Carolina as the celebrity businessman takes potential running mates out for test drives, bringing them on tour as he travels across the country in the days before he officially names his vice president.</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is slated to do the same in Ohio.</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">Trump spent Tuesday with Corker, inviting the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to briefly join him onstage in Raleigh. The two men were a study in contrasts, as Corker stood at least a foot shorter than the billionaire businessman and spoke in slow, deliberate phrases instead of Trump’s rapid-fire braggadocio.</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">"I wasn’t going to say anything. I just came to visit," Corker began. "The rallies that I have back home aren’t quite like this. Pretty cool."</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">He told the audience that he’d "had a pretty remarkable day" with Trump’s adult children, employees and campaign staffers. "You know it says a lot about a – it says a lot about a person to meet their family, to spend time with their kids, if you will," he said, sharing some down-home advice with the crowd. "Somebody once told me it’s not who you know in life, it’s how you know them."</span>

<span class="RACopyBody">These apparently public auditions stand in clear contrast to the usually highly secretive VP vetting process, including the clandestine one used by the previous Republican nominee just four years ago.</span>