President Donald Trump dealt an unexpected, embarrassing blow to his Vice President, JD Vance, after a surprise question about the 2028 presidential race.
It happened Oct. 20 during an Oval Office event attended by Vance and other Trump officials.
A reporter questioned Trump, who also seemed surprised by the question.
“The vice president said in an interview yesterday that he thought you would endorse him if he does decide to run in 2028,” the reporter began.
“Since we’re here, can you tell us,” but Trump quickly cut him off as Vance, standing behind the president, turned bright red and tried to laugh it off.
NYC Took Black and Hispanic Homeowners’ Properties Without Warning, Now a $60M Payout Looms
Black Woman Catches Georgia Doctor Allegedly Laughing About Her Urine Sample in Viral Video
“Well, I’ll tell you this. He’s a very talented person, and he’s a very good person, but we’ve literally, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it, Trump said, refusing to endorse Vance.
“No, sir, I said that too,” Vance winced.
Trump went on to say the pair have never talked about it before. “It’s early,” the president insisted.
“We have to get through the midterms. We’ll see how it goes,” Trump said, turning the question back around and making it about himself and his next campaign stop.
A clearly disappointed Vance, the forever yes-man, critics say, looked down at the floor as he continued nodding his head in agreement.
Social media erupted with commenters calling Trump’s refusal to endorse Vance everything from predictable to “brutal.”
“Trump declining to endorse his own vice president for 2028 while the guy is literally standing behind him, then adding ‘we’ve never talked about it,’ is the political equivalent of introducing your roommate as ‘someone who lives in the house.’ Brutal, yet totally on-brand for these political cannibals,” an X user stated.
Others piled on. “That ‘we’ve never talked about it’ line while Vance stands behind him is brutal. The denial speaks for itself.”
This commenter pointed out Vance’s reaction: “Look how red his face got.”
But Vance seemed confident in an interview on Mark Halperin’s show on the 2WAY platform a day before the Oval Office event that he thought Trump would endorse him.
“I really have not made up my mind about what to do in 2028,” a duplicitous and smiling Vance told Halperin.
“I just haven’t focused on it … Look I think if I run the president will endorse me.”
Halperin jumped in, “Right away? Right at the beginning”
A wishy washy Vance stuttered, “I, I, I, would think so but I don’t know, man. I haven’t talked to him about it.”
“Yeah, but it’d be kind of weird, though; it’d be kind of weird if you said, ‘Mr. President I’m gonna run,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, let me think about,’ No?” Halperin pressed.
“No, it would not be weird,” Vance whined.
“I think I would get his endorsement,” he insisted before hedging again, explaining that Trump might actually want to see the race for the Republican presidential nominee in 2028 play out before endorsing anyone.
“Again, I don’t know. Having never spoken to the president about this, I can’t speak to his psychology on it, but my attitude is, if I run, I think the president would endorse me,” Vance said again still dancing around what would be a critical endorsement should he decide to make a run for the White House in 2028.
But in a 2025 interview on Fox News, that’s not what Trump said.
Host Brett Baier asked Trump if he viewed Vance as his “successor, the Republican nominee in 2028?”
“No, but he’s very capable. I mean I don’t think that it, you know, I think you have a lot of very capable people,” an uncomfortable Trump hemmed and hawed.
And if the prediction markets are any indication, Vance along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who’s also mentioned as a 2028 GOP candidate, are both losing ground as Trump’s second term plays out.
Newsweek reported that Vance’s odds of winning the nomination have fallen from 53 percent on Sept. 3 to 43.8 percent by Oct. 20. Rubio’s chances also dropped from 27.8 percent in early August to just over 15 percent.
