President Donald Trump, with over three years left in his term, has refrained from passing the MAGA baton to any of his possible successors, keeping his looming lame-duck status at bay.
Despite signaling that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio could be the heirs to his coalition, Trump this week evaded pointing to either man directly, simply saying he believes Republicans have a strong bench for 2028.
In a recent interview with Politico, Trump praised his Cabinet members but did not name a single person who could energize the coalition that propelled him to the White House for a second time.
“I don’t know. You never know until they’re tested,” Trump said. “You know, it’s like, uh, you jump in the water; you can swim or you can’t. Some people can swim, and some people can’t. You never know. You have to see.”
“I think we have a very good bench,” he continued. “We have a great Cabinet. I have a really great Cabinet — better than my first Cabinet. I had some very good people in my first cabinet, but this cabinet, you know, I have much more experience.”
The president’s comments were notable given his past predilection for sharing the spotlight with several of his Cabinet and, at times, ceding press attention to them. Trump has pointed to Vance, and Rubio to a lesser extent, as “most likely” to become the MAGA successor. At the last Cabinet meeting of 2025, Trump praised Vance’s dominant 2024 debate performance against Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), then running for vice president.
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“I think the man’s a grossly incompetent man. I thought that from the day I watched JD destroy him,” Trump said of Walz last week.
However, as Trump enters an era where the GOP is looking to 2028, dangling a full-throated endorsement is a surefire way to push back against lame-duck-era allegations.
“Trump also wants to play Kingmaker,” said Matt Dole, a Republican political consultant based in Ohio. “Trump wants to continue to have influence. And that’s probably the most important or most interesting part of this entire process is Trump’s going to be pretty active through the midterm, and then he’s going to pretty quickly become a lame duck.”
Dole also said Trump’s return to dodging the 2028 successor question is a wise decision.
“The president’s probably right that the jury is out on who can capture the Trump coalition and keep it going, or if anybody can, I think the jury is probably still out on that,” he said.
In the aftermath of GOP losses in New Jersey and Virginia last month, Vance pushed the GOP to give Trump’s working-class coalition a reason to show up without the president on the ballot.
“We’ve got to motivate them,” Vance told Breitbart last month. “We’ve got to get them out to vote. I think it’s one of the lessons that we learned in Virginia and New Jersey, is that when Donald Trump is not on the ballot, you’ve got to give people something to actually believe in, something to be inspired by, to get out there and vote. They’re not going to vote just because you have an R next to your name; you’ve got to speak to this new working-class coalition.”
Vance has also faced some pushback over his reticence and call for unity after an intra-party GOP civil war broke out over Tucker Carlson‘s cozy sit-down with the controversial Nick Fuentes, who has made antisemitic comments, and Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts’s defense of the interview.
However, Trump’s hesitation to name Vance or Rubio likely has less to do with any GOP infighting and more to do with the president “making sure that everyone is beholden to him and not wanting to have someone in his court angling or those people that hold court … maneuvering behind his back or moving past him,” said Jason Roe, a GOP strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns.
The president may also recognize that, with 2028 set to be an open field, GOP lawmakers outside the White House are itching to launch their own presidential campaigns.
“Vance embodies more of the pugnaciousness of MAGA, but I think Marco is more serious. He’s more of an adult about his role,” said Roe, who worked on Rubio’s past presidential campaign. “And are we going to be pandering to the manosphere and want the bro-y pugnacious guy, or are we going to want the guy who’s on a mission out there to do something, which I think Marco projects a little more. And then you got [Gov. RonDeSantis (R-FL)], who I think can combine a little bit of both of their styles. But does he ever get out from under being the anti-Trump in 2024?”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a key ally of Trump on Capitol Hill, has also been rumored to be laying groundwork for a 2028 run, although he has denied the allegations.
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“In the past six to nine months after the president has been reelected, there’s a long list of those looking to speak at the Des Moines Reagan and Lincoln Day dinner,” said Brian Seitchik, a national GOP strategist. “Because of the unique qualities of this president and his continued stranglehold on the base that open campaigning for 2028 has not yet begun.”
“There’s still a lot of runway between now and after the midterms, when that race really kicks off. While the president has shown an interest and a fondness for both Rubio and Vance, there’s a lot of game left here for who’s going to get that nomination and how this is all going to play out,” he added. “So I don’t read too much into the president’s comments [to Politico].”
