President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media as he departs the White House en route to Kansas, in Washington, D.C., October 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump's presumed 2028 successor remains the same, but he appears unwilling to make their path to the GOP nomination a simple one.
In a new piece for The i Paper, reporter and columnist Sarah Baxter outlined the moment this past week when Trump shattered Vice President JD Vance's 2028 "dreams" directly to his face. Before that, her description began during his interview with journalist Mike Halperin on Air Force Two, where Vance insisted that, "if I run, the President will endorse me,” while stressing that the two have not discussed the matter
"You think? The President wasn’t having any of his cheek," Baxter wrote. "Asked if Vance was right about this at a White House event, Donald Trump shook his head."
“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Trump said. “He’s a very talented person, he’s a very good person, but we’ve, literally, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it.”
Following that remark, Baxter explained, the camera focused in on Vance, who was "looking embarrassed" by the situation.
"No, sir,” Vance responded. “I said that too."
Trump added: "It’s early, very early right now. We have to get through the midterms, see how it goes." Later, during a midterm rally in Iowa, he once again mused about running for an illegal third term in the White House, instead of relinquishing power to a Republican successor.
"I think the law says that I’m not allowed to run again," Trump said. "I studied that phrase forever. Unfortunately, it’s quite concise. Well, the one thing that’s different, they cheated us on the second one, because we won it three times. So I think I have the right to run again."
"Trump can sound like a broken record about this, but he’s convinced himself he’s owed a third term," Baxter wrote. "If Joe Biden could claim to be running for president right up to the wire in summer 2024, Trump is surely thinking: why can’t I pull off the same trick? If nothing else, toying with the idea of a third term and pursuing every (fruitless) legal avenue to secure it once the midterms are over would help to prevent him from becoming a lame-duck president."
She added: "Whenever Trump is faced with an unpleasant decision or legal problem, he adopts the strategy of 'delay, denigrate, deny.' He could spin the question of a third term well into the last two years of his presidency. But this would leave his Vice President in a tight spot. Evidence is mounting that Vance’s heart is not in becoming the next Kamala Harris."
As much as vice presidents are often treated as the presumed successors to the presidents they serve, Baxter noted that in the last 200 years, only one has actually managed to win the presidency right after their boss: George H.W. Bush, following on from Ronald Reagan. While Reagan was still popular by the end of his second term, Trump is "historically underwater with voters," leaving Vance's prospects in shambles.
"Trump is never going to think anyone, least of all his Vice President, could be a better candidate than himself," Baxter concluded. "You can count on him avoiding endorsing a successor for as long as he can get away with it. By the time he does, Vance may find that, like Harris in 2024, it has come too late."
