Trump told donors 'we need to elect JD,' source confirms, as he weighs Vance or Rubio in 2028 President Donald Trump has publicly been coy about whether he might back Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio to succeed him in the White House, but private comments to donors suggest he might be leaning toward the man he already picked as his running mate in 2024. "At the end of the day, we need to elect JD," Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with donors roughly two weeks ago, a source with knowledge of the comments, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, confirmed to Fox News Digital. The news was first reported by The Washington Post. While Vance remains
the clear hypothetical frontrunner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has narrowed the gap in national polls and surveys conducted in key early voting presidential primary states, as well as in Republican straw polls, ahead of a race that is not expected to begin in earnest until after this autumn's midterm elections. VANCE, CRUZ, HEAD TO IOWA ON 2026 MISSIONS AS 2028 GOP RACE TO SUCCEED TRUMP HEATS UP While Post sources say the remark is not evidence Trump has made a choice between his VP or Rubio, a man he has handed many hats in his administration, it is a rare and previously unreported lean of his long-term thinking. Trump made just one reference to Vance in his donor speech in Las Vegas on
Wednesday night, hailing "the war on fraud led by our great Vice President JD Vance: He's doing a great job." Fox News Digital reached out to the White House and Vance's office for comment Thursday morning. Rubio, who as a senator from Florida was one of more than a dozen GOP contenders who ran and lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, came in a close second to Vance earlier this year in the closely watched 2028 Republican presidential nomination straw poll at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The latest surveys and straw poll results are fuel for intrigue over what some in the Republican Party see as a budding rivalry between Rubio and Vance, who describ