The 2028 election is more than two years away, but speculating about who will be the first person in over a decade not named Donald Trump to appear atop the Republican ticket appears to be the 47th president’s favorite parlor game.
Trump on Monday conducted an informal straw poll of visiting law enforcement officials and other allies whom he’d gathered for dinner on the slate patio where the White House Rose Garden was until he tore it up and paved it over last year.
The question? Whether they prefer Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the next GOP presidential candidate.
After opining about the current state of the Democratic Party’s bench and laying into California Governor Gavin Newsom over a months-old interview, Trump dismissed the potential 2028 opposition to a MAGA successor as “a lot of beauties.”
Turning to Vance, Trump said: “JD, I envy you — and other people.”
“I don’t know who’s it going to be — Is it going to be JD, is it going to be somebody else? I don’t know,” he said.
The president then turned to his guests for their views.
“Okay, who likes JD Vance?”
After diners responded with tepid applause, Trump asked another question: “Who likes Marco Rubio?”
The crowd’s response was slightly more muted.
At that point, Trump appeared to have had his fun, telling the loyalists arrayed before him that a Vance-Rubio ticket sounded good to him.
“JD, this is a perfect that was a perfect ticket. By the way. I do believe that’s a dream team, but these are minor details,” he said.
But lest his vice president get any delusions of grandeur, the president then cautioned him: “That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance!”
Trump’s dinner emcee act echoed what The New York Times has reported to be a familiar survey he’s put to guests at his Mar-a-Lago club during his frequent visits there, asking his friends and colleagues to pick which of the two top officials should succeed him.
Vance, 41, is largely considered the frontrunner to take the reins of Trump’s legacy due to his popularity among moderate Republicans. But 54-year-old Rubio’s decades of political experience and multifaceted role in the current administration have resonated with many voters.
The president only poses the question for fun, Trump advisers have said, according to the New York Times, and often suggests the two men, whom he refers to as “kids,” should run on the same ticket.
But the consistent conversations around Vance and Rubio have ignited debates, especially as both men take on more public-facing roles.
Vance has taken a larger step into foreign affairs, helping lead so-far unsuccessful peace negotiations with Iran and attempting to rally support for Viktor Orbán, the former Hungarian leader who lost his re-election bid.
Recently, Vance has been deployed to rallies in the Midwest to connect with voters ahead of the midterms. The vice president’s background growing up in a white working-class Appalachian family has helped him engage with voters. But his recent stumbling through a speech in Iowa attracted negative attention.
Once a self-described “never Trump guy,” Vance’s progression to becoming Trump’s running mate mirrors much of the Republican Party’s feelings toward Trump between 2015 and now.
After being heckled at a Turning Point USA event in April, Vance struck an understanding tone with young voters who disagree with the administration’s stance on the Iran war.
“I’m not saying you have to agree with me on every issue. What I am saying is don’t get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic,” Vance said.
Rubio, an ex-Florida senator who unsuccessfully sought the presidency in the crowded 2016 primary that eventually crowned Trump as the GOP standard-bearer, has less of a high profile despite his years in public service in Florida’s legislature and the U.S. Senate.
But his time in the Trump administration has seen him become the subject of a running joke stemming from the many roles he fills while also serving as head of the State Department.
In addition to his Senate-confirmed job, making him fourth in line to the presidency, he is also the first person since Henry Kissinger to serve as both Secretary of State and the White House National Security Adviser.
But Rubio has also had stints, now complete, as acting Archivist to the United States and acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Each time a new role opens up — in the White House or elsewhere — social media erupts with AI-generated images of Rubio taking on those roles, from the Secretary of Homeland Security or Attorney General to the Supreme Leader of Iran or head of Spirit Airlines.
His status as a wearer of many hats has cemented him as a trusted leader in the administration. Already, Rubio is intimately involved in foreign affairs, assisting in discussions with Iran and leading efforts to reform Cuba’s communist government.
And while he’s infamously been cut out of high-stakes negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine and Iran wars in favor of Trump’s friend Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Rubio has nonetheless stepped into a more public spokesman role recently by leading the White House press briefing with jokes and making a public display of amends with Pope Leo XIV.
But the Secretary of State, who remains a close friend of Vance’s from their shared time in the Senate, has publicly stated that he would not run against the vice president if he chose to seek the presidency.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio said in a Vanity Fair interview last year.
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