Vance: I'll Talk to Trump About 2028 After the Midterms

Vice President JD Vance says he plans to speak with President Trump about a potential 2028 presidential run, but for now he says his main focus is on the midterms. During an appearance on Fox News' Hannity on Thursday, Vance told host Sean Hannity that while he has thought about what a future presidential campaign might look like, he tries to stay focused on his current role. "If you start getting distracted and focused on what comes next, I think it actually makes you worse at the job that you have," he said. "We're going to do everything that we can to win the midterms," he said. "And then after that, I'm going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it."

Vance, considered a leading contender for the 2028 GOP nomination, said he's "very focused" on the midterms "because if the Democrats get in power, they're going to try to screw up a lot of the great things the president of the United States has done over the past 10 months," Axios reports. "Trees that have been planted, some of which won't even bear fruit for a few years," he said, describing Trump's efforts as a "long-term economic revitalization" plan.

As for the possibility of running against Secretary of State Marco Rubio, another potential 2028 contender, Vance said the two are friends and that any rivalry is hypothetical at this point. "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," he said. Sources tell Politico that Rubio has been telling associates that Vance "is going to be the Republican nominee if he wants to be" and that he will support the effort. A Politico poll last month found that just 2% of people who voted for Trump last year want to see Rubio as the 2028 nominee. Some 35% chose Vance and 28% named Trump, who has often spoken of running for a third term but recently acknowledged that the Constitution is "pretty clear" on the subject.

story continues below

Vance wasn't asked about Jeffrey Epstein during the Hannity interview, the Independent notes. Asked about the economy, he blamed undocumented immigrants and Joe Biden for issues like persistent inflation, saying Trump "inherited this terrible inflation crisis from the Biden administration."