Vice President JD Vance gave a halting answer when asked whether President Trump talks to him about a potential White House bid.
Vance, 41, was joined by his wife, Usha Vance, 40, on CBS Sunday Morning, where the couple spoke with journalist Robert Costa about faith, family, and a potential 2028 presidential candidacy.
The vice president appeared to initially laugh off a question about whether he and President Donald Trump, 80, discuss the future, before later giving a stuttering response about how those conversations are going.
“It’s not coy, or it’s not positive or negative; it’s just he kind of talks about it like what’s going to happen?” Vance said, explaining that he “never” brings up his future plans to the president, but that Trump “brings it up a lot” both publicly and privately.
“The president’s a political animal; he loves this stuff,” Vance added.
Trump, who has repeatedly been asked who he thinks would be best positioned to become the GOP frontrunner after his term ends, has effectively set up a rivalry between two leading contenders: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 55, and Vance.
On one occasion, at a Rose Garden Club dinner in May, the president asked attendees who they would prefer to serve as commander-in-chief, prompting a louder round of applause for Vance and a more muted response for Rubio
Still, a bombshell report by The New York Times, citing more than a dozen insiders, revealed that the president has not only spoken to Vance and the public about the vice president’s future but has also privately vented to his allies about him.
The Times reported that Trump noted that the former Ohio senator had never won a difficult political race without his help, criticized the number of vacations Vance had taken, and expressed doubts about his decision to send Vance to negotiations in Pakistan aimed at ending the war in Iran.
“I have no doubt that the President of the United States is going to be very supportive about anything I ultimately decide to do, but we really just haven’t talked about what that thing will be,” the vice president told Costa, despite the report.
Vance, who before Trump’s first presidency said he “can’t stomach” the president and that he “never liked him,” has since become a defender of the president’s policies.
One example is that, though he has long been outspoken in his skepticism of U.S. involvement in foreign wars, he has remained somewhat supportive of the war in Iran.
“I think the president is like this too; I think both of us are generally skeptical of foreign military entanglements,” Vance said, although Trump has previously said Vance is “maybe less enthusiastic about going” to Iran than he is.
The potential 2028 GOP presidential contender also admitted that, aside from the president, he has to discuss future plans with his wife, who he said is “very blunt” about calling him out if she does not agree with what he has said.
“Usha and I will absolutely sit down and talk about what comes next for our family,” Vance told CBS, adding that he does not make decisions until he “absolutely must.”
