President Donald Trump remains noncommittal on any potential 2028 successors as he pits his top lieutenants against each other in a mad scramble for the MAGA crown.
“Who’s going to be the next president?” Fox News contributor Kennedy asked during the president’s appearance on The Five on Thursday, prompting nervous laughter from the other hosts and an awkward chuckle from the president.
Trump, 79, proceeded to launch into a long-winded answer in which he didn’t directly mention Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom he has previously touted as possible successors.
“Well, I would say that it will be a Republican. I really believe that and I think it will be a good one,” the president said.
“I think we have a combination of people that would be very good. You put together a little combination, I think it would be hard to beat the combination.”
“I think you can figure that out,” he added, drawing muted laughter from the hosts.
Trump has said he would like to see Vance, 41, and Rubio, 54, run a joint campaign—without clarifying who he envisions at the top of the ticket—setting the stage for a potentially bruising battle when the 2028 jockeying kicks off after November’s midterms.
Momentum appears to be shifting away from Vance.
Trump predicted last August that Vance is “most likely” the leading contender to inherit his MAGA throne, saying, “He would be probably favored at this point.”
But since then, the president has left the field open, time and again declining to put Vance ahead of Rubio on any potential ticket.
Instead, he has apparently been pitting them against each other, frequently asking his advisers whether Vance or Marco should run in 2028.
While hosting an event at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 28, he asked a room of Republican donors to cheer for which of the two men they would rather see run in 2028—and it was Rubio who scored the louder reaction, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role in Trump’s Cabinet, not only as secretary of state but also as the president’s national security adviser. Trump has been unabashed in his praise for Rubio, declaring he’d go down as “the best secretary of state in the country’s history.”
Vance, meanwhile, has found himself in an awkward position as the president ramps up his foreign interventions, which fly in the face of his long-standing opposition to foreign entanglements.
The vice president’s lukewarm support for Trump’s war with Iran has rankled the president, White House sources told Zeteo this week.
Trump has been making “snide, annoyed comments” about Vance, as well as Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, “knocking them for not being as enthusiastic,” the sources said.
However, others in the White House painted a different picture behind the scenes, telling Zeteo that Trump and Vance’s “relationship is as warm as ever.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
