Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has taken a thinly veiled swipe at Vice President JD Vance by suggesting there is no natural MAGA heir to take President Donald Trump’s place in 2028.
Speaking on the Pod Force One podcast, Cruz was asked whether the top of the GOP’s 2028 presidential ticket will be someone “anointed” by Trump with an endorsement, with Vance long believed to be the president’s natural successor.
“I think we are going to have a full and vigorous primary and discussion. I think the voters are going to decide who we are and what do we believe, and what matters,” Cruz, who is rumored to be considering his own 2028 bid, replied.
“President Trump is a unique historical figure. I’m going to say right now, there is no Donald Trump on the horizon to succeed.”
Pod Force One host and New York Post columnist Miranda Devine suggested that Trump, a former host of The Apprentice, “quite likes competition” and would prefer a hotly contested 2028 GOP primary rather than having the path cleared for whoever he endorses.
“I could certainly see that,” Cruz said. “I think the democratic process is a good way to decide who we are, what we believe. It’s a good way to vet people. What’s your record? What have you done?”
Cruz previously ran for president in 2016, when his GOP primary campaign focused on relentlessly attacking Trump.
However, when Trump won the 2016 Republican nomination, Cruz bent the knee and became one of his staunchest supporters in Congress, even after Trump insulted his wife’s physical appearance and suggested Cruz’s father was connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
It has long been predicted that Trump will eventually give his crucial endorsement to Vance to launch his White House bid in 2028, even as the president has also been teasing an endorsement for Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
While Cruz has not confirmed his presidential ambitions, he has made sure to dismiss suggestions that the GOP’s 2028 nomination is Vance’s to lose.
“There’s going to be a full discussion about who we are and what we believe,” Cruz told MS NOW’s Way Too Early last month.
Days later, Cruz told Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s podcast that it is “no secret that I want to be president.”
Asked if he intends to run, Cruz replied: “Time will tell.”
“I will say, this is a bug that history has proved is rarely ended,” he added. “It is a permanent and often fatal bug.”
Cruz was a bit more coy about whether he will run again in 2028 when pressed during his Pod Force One appearance.
“There will be plenty of time to have that conversation, but the time to have it is after the midterms, not before,” Cruz said.
