Trump casts doubt on JD Vance’s 2028 presidential bid: 'Maybe he won't run'
WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump said Wednesday, Nov 4, that he doesn't know who will run for president in 2028 and suggested Vice President JD Vance might not run, speaking to reporters the day after Republicans suffered heavy midterm losses. He also said he would not have done anything differently regarding the war with Iran.
The exchange came after a long, post-election assessment by Vance, who publicly blamed the Iran war for the party’s losses. Trump agreed with Vance’s comments but offered a slightly different take on the cause, according to CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes.
Trump on JD Vance’s postmortem
Trump took questions after speaking at length about the White House ballroom. Asked about Vance’s analysis, he said he understood where it came from.
Trump on JD Vance: "Maybe he won't run" https://t.co/tRgmtAE3Yu
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 4, 2026
“Well, that’s it. I knew he was… I know how he feels about it. I think it was fine, yeah. I thought it was good. We knew that. I knew that when I went in. And we stopped them from having a nuclear weapon, and they will never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
“Have you spoken to Vice President Vance about 2028?” A reporter asked.
“I speak to him about a lot of things, but I mean, we’ll see what happens. Everybody, you don’t know who’s talking about running. You can have people running. You can have a lot of people, maybe a lot of people running, maybe nobody’s gonna run,” Trump replied.
Holmes noted that Trump agreed with Vance but did not attribute the losses to the war itself. He pointed instead to the higher prices the war caused. She said he repeated that he would not have handled the conflict differently.
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up. So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us." Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026. There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true. But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were: 1) End the war 2) Focus on cost of living/inflation 3) Put America First 4) Change our relationship to Israel Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.) In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you. The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there. I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 4, 2026
A 2028 field still taking shape
A reporter asked whether Trump had spoken with Vance about 2028.
"Maybe he won’t run, I don’t know who’s gonna run. But I can tell you that as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different," Trump said.
Holmes then added, “I can assure you one thing, Dana: someone is going to run in 2028, no matter what President Trump says. Now, there’s another part of that response, where he says that Vance’s comments, he agrees with them, but he still doesn’t say it’s the war. He says it’s higher prices that the war led to. And that, again, he repeated, he doubled down on this idea: he wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
Trump has been cautious on the issue of succession. “At the end of the day, we need to elect JD,” he told donors, the Washington Post reported in August. Trump later said it was “way too early” to think about an endorsement. He also described Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a “dream team” without indicating which should head a ticket.
Vance has said he will decide about a 2028 run after the midterms, and Rubio has said he would not seek the nomination if Vance does.
The midterm results have prompted public debate within the party over the causes. Some Republican commentators have pointed to the Iran war and prices, and Trump has defended his handling of the war. Trump has said Iran can’t build a nuclear weapon now and a deal with Tehran is possible.
With the election now behind them, the focus is turning to how the White House and congressional Republicans will navigate the final two years of Trump’s term, and who might lead the party in 2028.
