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President Donald Trump is no stranger to championing his ability to rejuvenate the United States as the nation’s chief executive.
“AMERICA IS HOT!” Trump claimed on social media after the May jobs report.
“The USA is the ‘hottest’ and most respected Country anywhere in the World,” Trump proclaimed in July, marking six months of his presidency.
But in his second term in the White House, Trump has also shared the spotlight and success with several of his Cabinet members, suggesting a somewhat magnanimous president primed to handpick his successor in 2028.
Trump has heaped praise for several domestic and foreign policy achievements on Vice President JD Vance, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and War Secretary Pete Hegseth. The president has even taken time to laud lesser-known Cabinet members, including Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
At least two of the Cabinet members are possible 2028 contenders poised to take up the Make America Great Again mantle after the term-limited Trump leaves the White House.
Trump previously claimed that Vance was “most likely” to become the MAGA successor, but he also simultaneously praised Rubio, pointing to a future GOP battle for the soul of the party.
This second turn in the White House shows Trump “knows the job,” Missouri-based Republican consultant Gregg Keller said. “He knows exactly what he wants to accomplish, and you see him delegating to really talented people, who he trusts and letting them do their thing.”
“I think what we’re seeing in Trump 2.0 is the real Donald Trump manager,” he added. “And I don’t think Trump 2.0 management style is so much a huge change as it is Trump being more comfortable in the presidency.”
Vance is the leading contender for the 2028 GOP race
Trump and the vice president have seemingly reached a new level in their relationship, belying the historic tensions between a president and his No. 2.
From the outset of Trump’s second administration, Vance has been tapped for high-profile moments that will likely boost him in a future GOP presidential primary.
“JD was very much involved in charge of it,” Trump said during a late September event touting a deal allowing TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. “And maybe I’ll have you say a few words, report back, and the points of the deal I think are great for our country. So, JD, do you want to give it a little talk? Please?”
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Vance has taken a top role in the administration as the chief spokesman for the president. He famously criticized the European allies over free speech abuses at the Munich Security Conference in Germany and berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a White House visit that led to the foreign leader’s hasty exit. Months later, Vance and Zelensky met in Rome as the Trump administration pushed for a ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war.
The vice president was a key figure in persuading Senate Republican holdouts, such as Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), to eventually support the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a major domestic policy bill.
“I can speak for the president, saying he genuinely enjoys the vice president’s company, and he greatly trusts him, as evidenced by his tasking the vice president with major projects like the TikTok deal, which the vice president successfully helped lead and accomplish with China,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Examiner.
A source close to the vice president told the Washington Examiner that Vance has “an incredibly close relationship” with Trump, especially compared to previous administrations.”
“It’s also widely known that the vice president is wholeheartedly committed to implementing the president’s agenda, and that breeds a lot of trust between the two of them,” the source also said.
Trump shines spotlight on Rubio and other Cabinet members
Despite his affinity for Vance, Trump has also been willing to heap praise on other top members of his administration, such as Rubio, who remain popular in the GOP.
“I have a prediction that Marco will go down — I mean this — as the greatest secretary of state in the history of the United States,” Trump said during his speech to the Israeli parliament, known as the Knesset, earlier this month. “I believe that. Who the hell thought this was going to happen? Marco, right? And now, I’m saying he’s going to go down as the greatest. He will. He was always smart and sharp, and people respect him.”
At an address to military leaders in Quantico, Virginia, late last month, Trump signaled his support for Hegseth, who has endured a rocky tenure since he was first sworn in to lead the Pentagon.
“I’m thrilled to be here this morning to address the senior leadership of what is once again known around the world as the Department of War,” Trump said. “I know Pete spoke about it. He gave a great speech, I thought. I don’t want him to get so good. I hate that. You know, I hate it. I almost fired him. But I said, ‘You can’t — I don’t want to go on after that.’ Now, he gave a great speech.”
He also praised the two men during a May event marking the National Day of Prayer. “Marco Rubio, unbelievable. Unbelievable, Marco,” Trump said. “When I have a problem, I call up Marco. He gets it solved. He gets it solved.”
Hegseth, according to Trump, was “doing a fantastic job,” while Attorney General Pam Bondi was “doing incredible work.”
Even the secretaries who may not be leading contenders in 2028 have seen Trump personally praise them.
“Lori, you know you’re doing a fantastic job,” Trump said on Thursday, praising the labor secretary during an event this week announcing a new IVF initiative. “I will not say that she was recommended by the Teamsters. Can you believe it? And she’s turned out to be a gem, an absolute gem. You’re doing a great job. Thank you very much.”
Similarly, Trump claimed in April that Rollins worked to lower the price of eggs. “Our great secretary of agriculture, you did a fantastic job. Brooke Rollins, you did a fantastic job,” Trump said. “As I said before, the price of eggs dropped 59%, and they’re going down more, and the availability is fantastic.”
The effect, according to Keller, has shown the GOP who the future bright lights of the party are.
“I think that he hired some preternaturally talented people to surround him this time around,” he said. “I think that Rubio is a star. I think that Hegseth is a star. I think JD Vance is a star. I think the staffing in Trump. 2.0 is light-years ahead of what it was in Trump. 1.0.”
Trump hasn’t selected a successor — yet
The president is notably a fan of politicians who are camera-ready and can appeal to American audiences on a visual level.
“Not only does Trump seem to have a genuine connection with Vance, no doubt forged by Vance’s closeness to Trump Jr., but he has one of those made-for-TV stories,” Republican strategist Dennis Lennox said. “Trump likes people who look right out of central casting.”
“Like Vance, Hegseth looks the part, though I’m sure Trump has told him to tone down the distracting sartorial flourishes,” Lennox continued. “Like Pence, Trump did Hegseth a huge favor by elevating him from weekends on Fox to the Pentagon and then sticking by him during a bruising confirmation fight that in other administrations almost certainly would have ended with his withdrawal. This has given Trump incredible leverage over Hegseth, whose loyalty is never going to be an issue.”
Yet Trump’s mercurial nature has given other presidential scholars, who cited the president’s six-month journey to even suggest that Vance and Rubio were in the running to succeed him, some hesitancy.
“Trump is kind of all over the map,” Boston University presidential historian Thomas Whalen said. “In February, he basically refused to even suggest that Vance would be a good successor to him. He had the opportunity to name him, and he kind of left him off a list of possible successors. He’s kind of hinted at it, and Rubio was the latest contender. He’s basically very impulsive. He does everything by the seat of his pants … and I really don’t think he knows what he’s going to do.”
“What this whole kind of shell game that Trump is playing here, confidence game, is he’s basically kind of playing them off, one against the other,” Whalen also said. “Divide and conquer. … They’re going to all try to scramble for his favor and that works to his political advantage.”
Other experts pointed to the chaotic tenure of Trump’s first term as another cautionary tale for his Cabinet members.
“In the first term, Trump went through four chiefs of staff,” said St. Louis University professor emeritus Joel Goldstein, an expert on the vice presidency. “He went through what, three or four national security advisers?”
Goldstein pointed to the public spat between Elon Musk, the former leader of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, and the president, over Musk’s opposition to the revocation of electric vehicle tax breaks included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“There was a lot of turnover in important positions, and some of his breakups with people were somewhat dramatic,” Goldstein said. “Even Musk’s departure seemed to be an incident of somebody not leaving under happy circumstances … a lot of people who were once upon a time very close with Trump end up being fierce critics.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence had what Goldstein described as a “sycophantic” relationship with Trump. But he famously broke with his boss on Jan. 6, 2021, when Pence refused to violate the Constitution and overturn Joe Biden‘s 2020 presidential win as he presided over the certification of the election.
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Some historians have also warned that the Trump administration has not yet hit the one-year mark, and with 2028 still far off, much could change between the president and Vance, who many think is best poised to beat out Rubio and others for the nomination.
“I’m a little cautious about saying that the current relationship, the Trump-Vance relationship, is qualitatively different,” said Christopher Devine, a vice presidential candidate expert at the University of Dayton, about the contrast to Biden and Harris. “We haven’t stress-tested that yet. That’s going to come, I don’t know exactly when, whenever it is that the page starts turning towards the next presidential election, clearly after the midterms, of course, but we’ll see how quickly it develops from there.”
