Trumpworld insiders say that while President Donald Trump favors Vice President JD Vance as a potential successor in 2028, his support isn’t “set in stone” and the president could still wind up backing Secretary of State Marco Rubio or even another Republican candidate.
Several individuals with insight into Trump’s thinking told the Washington Examiner that although the president has said “we need to elect JD,” he hasn’t yet made up his mind on a potential successor.
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“That’s DJT. He will say ‘it’s JD’ and then he’ll say to someone, ‘Who do you like between Marco and JD?’ It’s just how DJT is,” a Republican strategist close to the administration said Thursday. “He’s been saying this s*** to donors and others that it’s going to be JD for a while, but with DJT nothing’s ever for sure until he makes a public endorsement.”
A former senior Trump White House official told the Washington Examiner that Trump is still hoping for a Vance-Rubio ticket but is unsure whether the secretary of state would want to sign up for the vice presidency at this point.
“Nothing is set in stone. I think [Trump’s] going to want to see how the midterms turn out, see what the money landscape looks like before making an actual endorsement,” that person explained. “The funny thing is you have all of these ‘insiders’ claiming to know exactly what the president will do, but I’d say that’s all up in the air until the president actually tweets it out.”
Trump himself was asked on Thursday about a Washington Post report that he’d told GOP donors that “at the end of the day, we need to elect JD.”
“I think he’s great, but we’re way too early to even be thinking about that,” Trump said in response.
Neither Vance nor Rubio has yet announced a presidential bid. Both men remain close allies, and Rubio has even gone as far as to say he won’t run against Vance in 2028. Individuals close to Vance previously told the Washington Examiner that the vice president wasn’t expected to make a decision on a White House bid until after November’s midterm elections.
Still, longtime GOP aides noted that either Vance or Rubio would have to declare bids “before too long,” especially with GOP rivals such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) eyeing their own campaigns. A former top Trump campaign aide told the Washington Examiner that rumors surrounding a third-party bid from conservative commentator Tucker Carlson also “stresses the urgency for a front-runner candidate to try to clear the field early.”
Though Vance led Rubio as the odds-on favorite to succeed Trump in the early days of the president’s term, Rubio has made significant ground in a number of polls and prediction markets. A straw poll conducted at the Western Conservative Summit in Colorado over the weekend gave Rubio a 36-point lead over Vance.
Since last year, Trump has repeatedly said that he likes both Vance and Rubio for 2028. The president has actively avoided publicly elevating either man, but has spent months privately polling advisers, donors, and high-ranking Republicans about their preferences for 2028.
Vance himself laughed off the president’s process earlier this summer, comparing it to Trump’s long tenure as host of the primetime reality show The Apprentice.
“Well, I just don’t think it sounds like the president of the United States to have a televised competition for who would succeed him as his apprentice,” he told reporters when asked about the president’s comments.
A GOP operative plugged into the administration told the Washington Examiner that a Trump endorsement would depend on a candidate’s likelihood of success. The operative noted that Trump loves to tout his successful endorsement record, but presidential primaries are, by nature, competitive, at least early on.
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“Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina were not walks in the park for Trump,” they added. “No reason to believe they will be for Vance or really anyone.”
“We’re thinking about nothing besides November,” a senior Republican official working closely with Trump’s political team told the Washington Examiner. “Everything else is just noise.”
