Trump pits Vance against Rubio in 'game' over 2028

President Donald Trump is playing “a game” with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, according to a recent report.

“The 2028 election is more than 2½ years away, but it is very much on Trump’s mind, as he casts about for a suitable heir to his MAGA empire,” The Wall Street Journal wrote. “For months, the president has privately polled advisers, donors and friends about the political strengths and weaknesses of his vice president and secretary of state, pitting the two young, ambitious Republicans against each other—whether they like it or not.”

The Journal added, “Less than a day after the U.S. began bombing Iran, President Trump met with two dozen donors at his Mar-a-Lago club. As attendees dined on jumbo crab and rib-eye steaks, Trump asked the crowd: What do you think of JD Vance and Marco Rubio? The guests applauded louder for Rubio, according to people in the room.”

The Journal noted that both Rubio and Vance have different pros and cons in terms of their potential candidacies. Vance is widely assumed to be Trump’s heir apparent, beats Rubio in polls of primary voters and has Rubio’s private and public reassurance that the latter will not run if the former does so. At the same time, Trump is very fond of Rubio, entrusting him with a wide portfolio of responsibilities and repeatedly praising him publicly. He is also fond of Vance, but tends to couch that praise in criticism.

“Speaking to governors in February, Trump called Vance ‘a brilliant guy’ who can be a ‘little bit tough on occasion…We gotta slow him down just a little bit,’” the Journal reported. “Then he described Rubio as the ‘opposite extreme,’ adding, ‘Marco does it with a velvet glove, but it’s still a kill.’”

One such kill is Trump’s planned invasion of Cuba. As the Journal reported, “Trump and Rubio are teaming up on a plan to topple the Communist leadership of Cuba, a longtime goal for Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. The success in Venezuela emboldened Trump administration officials to try to do so by the end of the year.” He also praised a February foreign policy speech by Rubio as so good that he almost “terminated” him, and contrasted Vance’s own speech unfavorably.

Foreign policy is one of the areas where Vance and Rubio disagree. Vance is close to the Republican Party’s isolationist wing and faces trouble among supporters who disagree with Trump’s recent wars in Venezuela and Iran. Rubio, by contrast, represents the party’s traditional conservative elements when it comes to foreign policy, particularly those who prioritize America’s relationship with Israel.

"We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action (against Iran)….” Rubio said to reporters at one point in March to justify the war in Iran. “We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces (by the Iranian regime). And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.... And then, we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act…. Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what."

As Axios wrote at the time, these remarks "were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans' public support for Israel has hit historic lows."

According to James Ball of The i Paper, Vance will struggle immensely to “thread the needle” between the Trump/Rubio approach to foreign policy and that preferred by his own backers.

"Vance needs to be seen as the designated successor, but also not responsible for any of the failures of a second Trump term, or at least not the ones the core MAGA base care about," Ball argued. "That is a delicate needle for the Vice President to thread: he needs to look ultra-loyal, he needs to keep a high profile among Republican activists, but he needs not to be tied to the administration’s failures."

Trump’s war on Iran exacerbates this dilemma for Vance.

"JD Vance doesn’t have any good options on Iran, but he can hope that Marco Rubio’s are worse," Ball wrote. "As Secretary of State, Rubio can’t hide from the Iran crisis nearly so much as the Vice President can. Perhaps that is Vance’s great hope in all of this. He can’t outrun the war, but he might be able to outrun Rubio."