Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s campaign is downplaying reports that the billionaire is considering former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to serve as his vice presidential running mate.
“We are focused on the primary and the debate, not VP speculation,” Jason Schechter, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement over the weekend.
That statement came in response to a tweet earlier on Saturday from right-wing news aggregator Matt Drudge:
EXCLUSIVE: BLOOMBERG CONSIDERS HILLARY RUNNING MATE
Sources close to Bloomberg campaign tell DRUDGE REPORT that candidate is considering Hillary as running mate, after their polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force… https://t.co/XH3TJA9nas pic.twitter.com/wBwRh1hVJH
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) February 15, 2020
Drudge also reports that Bloomberg could be considering moving his permanent residence to one of his homes in Colorado or Florida “since the electoral college makes it hard for a POTUS and VPOTUS from the same state.”
Indeed, the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states that candidates for president and vice president on the same ticket “shall not be an inhabitant of the same state.”
According to Fox News, an unidentified source close to Clinton says that she “wants back in” to politics following her loss to Trump in the 2016 election.