Vice President JD Vance brushed off murmurs of a 2028 presidential run alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as the early jockeying to succeed President Donald Trump as head of the Republican Party gets underway.
In a podcast interview with the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” released Wednesday, Vance dismissed the idea of a presidential bid as “premature” but suggested he’d be open to the plan later in his term.
“My attitude is the American people elected me to be vice president,” Vance said in the interview. “I’m going to work as hard as I can to make the president successful over the next 3 years and 3 months, and if we get to a point where something else is in the offer, let’s handle it then.”
“But let’s at least get through the next couple of years and do good work for the American people before we talk about politics,” he continued.
Trump earlier this week floated the idea of Vance and Rubio leading the Republican Party after he leaves office — a plan Vance said Trump first raised to him at a private lunch about six months ago and that he’s since joked with Rubio about “in jest.”
But the vice president stopped short of ruling out the idea of a presidential run altogether, saying he’s focused on solving the issues facing the current administration like tackling affordability, but signaling he’d be open to revisiting the conversation down the line.
“We’re still so early,” Vance said in the interview. “And what I always say to people is if we take care of business, the politics will take care of itself. And we’re nine months into this thing. We’ve done a lot of good. There’s a lot more work to do.”
Trump has yet to specify which of his administration officials would be his preferred front-runner on the hypothetical 2028 ticket, but Vance said the idea has placed no tension on his relationship with Rubio, whom he described as his “best friend in the administration.”
“So far I’ve never woken up and thought to myself, ‘How do I make myself president of the United States,’” he said. “What I wake up and think to myself is ‘How do I do a good job as vice president?’ And I think Marco Rubio asks himself, ‘How do I do a good job as secretary of State?’ And that should be the question that each of us keeps on asking ourselves.”
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