Trump and his non-successor at an inaugural event.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
As Mike Pence could tell you, being Donald Trump’s White House understudy is hard and often humiliating work, even if he doesn’t order you to overturn an election. But it’s understandable that J.D. Vance quickly leaped to the challenge when tapped as vice-president last summer. He was, after all, brand-new to elected office, and if the ticket won, Trump would be in his final term, making the Ohioan the odds-on favorite to become the 2028 Republican presidential nominee and likely the chieftain of the MAGA movement. It was quite the heady prospect for someone who turned 40 a couple of weeks after his nomination.
After solid work as a running mate (though not one who was terribly popular), Vance is now fully in the small-pony saddle riding shotgun for the boss, distinguishing himself by whacking his own Catholic Church for its immigrant-loving habits and threatening federal judges that the administration may just ignore inconvenient judicial edicts. But the good times might have already come to an abrupt and embarrassing end in a Fox News interview segment with Trump that just aired:
He went on to praise the “fantastic job” Vance has done (which Trump says about everyone who works for him up until the moment they’re fired) and said he was “very capable,” before adding that there are “a lot of capable people.” The 47th president finally seemed to settle on the “It’s too early” explanation for not designating a successor, then changed the subject back to the incredible achievements he’s racking up every day. If I were Vance watching this interview, the immediate, adamant “No!” Trump expressed would stand out and then haunt my every waking moment.
Maybe it is too early for succession talk, particularly from a man who doesn’t like to think of himself as ever losing power or that anyone else could ever replace him. In that respect, Trump is exactly like Succession’s Logan Roy. But as Bret Baier rightly said in a follow-up comment after Trump’s “too early” demurral, by the time the 2026 midterms come around, Vance will be asking for a 2028 endorsement and have every reason to expect it. Indeed, if Trump doesn’t endorse Vance a year or so before the 2028 Iowa Caucuses, he’ll be dead meat.
Aside from continuing to do a “fantastic job” and to praise the Boss’s holy name whenever possible, Vance needs to out-MAGA potential 2028 rivals now that Trump has given them fresh hope. He should burnish his good relationship with Donald Trump Jr., if only to head off possible dynastic thoughts from the royal family. And he should thank his lucky stars that Elon Musk, as a naturalized citizen, is not eligible to run.
