All eyes have been on Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the names most likely to chase after Trump's "MAGA crown" after his second term. However, a one-time biographer with inside sources this week claimed that a new name has been circling the "lame duck" president, looking for his own shot at being the successor.
Despite his earlier teases and musings, Trump is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in office, setting the stage for an unprecedented fight for his place as the 2028 GOP presidential nominee and, in effect, the new leader of the Republican and the MAGA movement. As vice president, Vance has long been seen as the most obvious candidate, but due to his historic unpopularity, other names have also been under serious consideration.
Michael Wolff is a veteran writer and journalist, best known for his tell-all books about the chaos behind the scenes of Trump's first term, based on sources he maintains close to the White House. During the latest episode of his Daily Beast podcast, "Inside Trump's Head," Wolff explained that the president's plummeting approval and the suspected drubbing coming for the GOP in the midterms mean that his "lame duck" era is fast approaching, and will see "power starts to ebb because other people start to step up” as “the party begins to think beyond the current presidency.”
In this search for the next MAGA leader, Wolff revealed one name within the administration possibly angling for a shot: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. His chances, however, are strongly dependent on whether or not both Vance and Rubio flame out on the path to the nomination.
"Is Pete Hegseth somehow, because he’s a performer, because he seems shameless, because he’s pro-military in some comical way, does this make him someone who can be a number two or three, and then number one and two fall, and he rises? Unlikely, but not impossible," Wolff said.
He also mentioned a name outside of the administration, making serious considerations about mounting a run for president, one who has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump in recent months: Tucker Carlson.
"I’ve had this discussion on quite a number of occasions with Tucker about his desire to run for president,” Wolff said. “And he has done the deflecting, but not the denying.”
Former congresswoman and Trump-ally-turned-critic Marjorie Taylor Greene has also purportedly been pushing for a Carlson candidacy, potentially priming herself to be his running mate.
Wolff also predicted that, no matter who ends up on the GOP ticket, Trump will try to sabotage their run in some way.
“He will hobble anyone trying to be the nominee. But whoever is the nominee, he will then undermine,” he suggested. “It’s part of the story to be told, and that I trust we will be telling, how he reacts to all of this over the next two and a half years. It won’t be pretty.”