Byron Donalds, potential VP pick, once attacked Trump and praised outsourcing, privatizing entitlements

CNN —

Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, a Donald Trump loyalist and one of the former president’s most trusted surrogates, is widely viewed to be on Trump’s short list of vice presidential contenders.

But in 2011, Donalds posted to Facebook celebrating Trump’s decision not to challenge then-President Barack Obama for the White House. “Trump won’t run. Thank God!” Donalds wrote in one Facebook post in May 2011.

CNN’s KFile unearthed numerous examples of Donalds directly criticizing Trump in social media posts and interviews in 2011 and 2012, when he was an outspoken tea party activist running – unsuccessfully, then – for a seat in Congress. He attacked Trump’s protectionist stances on trade and called out Trump for his birtherism comments about Obama.

“Trump is a huge distraction, and cares more about himself than the country in my opinion, but I could care less about him,” Donalds wrote in a Facebook post in April 2011 when discussing Trump’s claims that Obama’s birth certificate was fake.

“I don’t question his religion or his citizenship,” Donalds said. “Quite a few Democrats and liberals still think Bush caused 9/11.”

“Trump is a self-promoter yelling about 25% tariffs on China,” Donalds said in the same string of Facebook posts.

In other public comments from the same time, Donalds argued against Trump’s calls to boost US manufacturing, saying it was cheaper to make clothes in China than in Michigan, and said he favored privatizing entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which would be better as a “voucher,” along with raising the retirement age.

A spokesman for Donalds defended him in a comment to CNN.

“President Trump is considering Byron as his running mate because of the