Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Thursday that he’s thought about the likelihood of running for president to succeed Donald Trump in 2028 — and he plans to hold a heart-to-heart with his boss about it following next year’s midterm elections.
“I would say that I’ve thought about what that moment might look like after the midterm elections, sure,” Vance, 41, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in a one-on-one interivew.
“But I also, whenever I think about that, I try to put it out of my head and remind myself the American people elected me to do a job right now and my job is to do it.”
Vice President JD Vance said he plans to talk to President Trump regarding his likelihood of running for president in 2028. Fox News
“I really want us to win the midterms because, if the Democrats get in power, they’re gonna try to screw up a lot of the great things the president of the United States has done over the past 10 months,” the veep went on. “Again, trees that have been planted, some of which won’t even bear fruit for a few years. I don’t want the Democrats to screw that up.
“So we’re going to win the midterms, we’re going to do everything that we can to win the midterms, and then after that, I’m going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it.”
With Trump, 79, barred by law from running for a third term, the president suggested to reporters on a trip to the Far East last month that Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be an “unstoppable” Republican ticket.
“People have asked me, ‘Well, you know, do you see Marco as a rival?” Vance said. “First of all, if either one of us end up running, it’s a long, long ways in the future, and neither of us is entitled to it.
“So, I think it would be ridiculous for me to say, ‘Well, Marco is a rival.’ No, no, no. Marco’s a colleague. The president of the United States has asked each of us to do two very important jobs, and that’s what we should focus on.”
Trump is legally barred from running for a third term. AFP via Getty Images
In an interview with Post columnist Miranda Devine on the “Pod Force One” podcast Oct. 29, Vance called Rubio “my best friend in the administration.”
“When I say that Marco is my best friend, that’s no insult to anybody else in the administration because, you know, when I came into the Senate [in 2023], Marco was a bit of a mentor to me,” Vance told Hannity Thursday night.
“He [was] one of the younger guys in the Senate. He’s got, you know, by the standards of Washington, he still has a young family. He’s got kids who are in law school and college, and so, there’s just a lot of commonality that we have.
“We’re both people of very strong faith, and our wives get along well. It’s just — he’s a good guy and I like coming to work with him and I like talking to him about the things that confront the administration, confront the president.”
As the second Trump administration nears the end of its first year, Vance is the clear favorite to be the 2028 GOP standard-bearer.
According to a new poll from Overton Insights released this week, the former senator from Ohio would get the support of 34% of Republican primary voters in a hypothetical nationwide contest.
Vance was followed in the sweepstakes by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. (22%); Florida Gov. Ron Desantis (12%); Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (8%); Rubio (7%); former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (5%); and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (also 5%).