JD Vance stuck up for Donald Trump after the president refused to endorse him as his successor.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the vice president said it was “too early” to make that decision and that Trump “said exactly what he should have said.”
The face-saving comes after Trump was asked in an interview with Bret Baier earlier this month if he viewed Vance as next in line for 2028, to which Trump replied simply: “No.”
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“But he’s very capable. I think you have a lot of very capable people so far,” the president continued. “I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early. We’re just starting.”
Baier then continued to press Trump about Vance receiving a possible endorsement by the midterms in 2026 as the president tried to move past the topic altogether.
Even Baier said he was shocked by the response afterward.
“I think it was a little shocking when he said ‘No.’ I wasn’t expecting that,” Baier said in a separate interview. “Once you get to the midterm, you start to think about 2028. And obviously one would think JD Vance is going to be trying to position for that role. But clearly, the president is not ready to talk about that, or think about it, and says that there are other people that may get in the mix.”
But Vance was seemingly unfazed, telling the Daily Mail his current focus is “the American people’s business.”
However, in his responses, Vance did not rule out running for the top spot after his vice presidency.
“There will be a time to focus on politics, of course—the midterms—so let’s do a good job and then worry about the midterms,” he said. “And then we’ll worry about presidential politics at the appropriate time.”
For now, he is working to get Trump’s to-do list, which has led to the firing of thousands of federal workers in his first month in office, carried out across the country.
“The president, while he doesn’t sleep very much, you know, he’s only one man. He doesn’t have nine pairs of hands,” Vance continued, “and he needs people in his administration to get out there and implement the agenda that he was elected to do.”
