Marco Rubio breaks silence over Trump vice president rumours

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Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who once suggested the size of Donald Trump’s hands indicated smaller-than-average reproductive anatomy when he and the future president both ran for president eight years ago, has indicated a willingness to serve as Mr Trump’s vice president should the 45th president succeed in becoming the 47th after the November presidential election.

The Sunshine State’s junior senator said on Thursday that it would be “an honour” for Mr Trump to choose him as his 2024 running-mate after NBC News reported that he is under consideration, citing sources close to the ex-president.

“I think anybody who would be offered that should be honored, but I’ve never spoken to anybody in the Trump world about it,”  he said.

Because the US Constitution doesn’t allow the president and vice president to be residents of the same state, selecting Mr Rubio as his running mate would require the former president to change his primary residence from Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Florida social club and the site where he allegedly stored hundreds of classified documents after he left the White House following his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.

In such an instance, Mr Trump could re-establish residency in New York, where he lived from birth until he moved to Washington at the start of his term in 2017.

Selecting the Florida senator as his vice president would represent a significant rapprochement between the two men, who attacked each other in vulgar terms when they squared off for the GOP nomination during the 2016 election cycle.

During one March 2016 primary debate, Mr Rubio responded to Mr Trump calling him “little Marco” by suggesting that Mr Trump’s genitals were undersized by remarking on the size of the New Yorker’s hands.

“And you know what they say about guys with small hands,” said Mr Rubio, who was then a sitting senator while Mr Trump was merely a real estate developer turned reality television host.

The future president defended his manhood shortly thereafter, falsely claiming that no one had ever commented on his hand size before even though the now-defunct Spy magazine had routinely referred to him as a “short-fingered vulgarian”.

“I have to say this, he hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I’ve never heard of this one. Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands if they’re small, something else must be small,” he said. “I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you.”