Vice President JD Vance said the 2028 presidential primary is “over” when President Trump ultimately endorses a Republican candidate.
“Whoever the president endorses will ultimately win the Republican primary,” Vance said in an interview with Sean Spicer. “While Donald Trump will ultimately decide who is going to be the Republican nominee, you have a general election; 330 million Americans are going to decide who the president of the United States is.”
Vance described himself as a “procrastinator” when it comes to deciding whether to run, saying he plans to put off the decision until he can no longer avoid it.
“I’m so focused on the midterms,” Vance said. “If my wife was making this decision, she would have been thinking about this for the past two years. But I’m the sort of person; I’m not going to make the decision until I really have to.”
Vance said his family will be a major consideration.
“We got four little kids. You have to make sure that you could do this in a way that actually was good for the kids. Like you cannot sacrifice your family for even the very high office and the high service that comes along with it,” Vance told Spicer. “You got to make sure that you think you’re the right person that can make a good contribution to the country at that time.”
“The midterms will happen, and then I’ll have to start thinking about it, and then I will,” he added.
It’s a clear signal that Vance has not ruled out a White House bid, which would put him in the difficult position of carrying Trump’s MAGA movement forward while keeping together the politically diverse coalition the president built. Among its members – or former members – is Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host and close friend of the vice president, who has called for Trump’s impeachment, floated the idea of creating a new political party, and defended far-left Democrats in the 2026 midterms.
“But at what point do you find that, because of your position as vice president, you’ve maybe got to call some balls and strikes?” Spicer asked Vance about their relationship.
“I think you have to do that all the time, and I’ve done that with Tucker. I’ve done it with any number of people,” Vance said, pointing to their disagreements over the Iran war.
Vance then directly criticized Carlson for defending Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Michigan Senate candidate.
“Abdul El-Sayed is a guy who you agree with about the Iran War, and I understand that. But wait a second, this is a guy who says that the Iran conflict is a problem because it violates international law. How is that America First?” Vance asked. “A guy who said that a terrorist who tried to kill a bunch of innocent schoolchildren — that he empathized not with the innocent families but with the terrorists himself. So I think that you have a responsibility to have these disagreements.”
Vance was referring to El-Sayed’s comments following a Hezbollah-inspired attack on a Jewish preschool in suburban Detroit in March, after which the Democrat said that “hurt people hurt people.”
Still, Vance made clear that his disagreements with Carlson would not lead him to cut ties, arguing that abandoning a friend over politics to gain an advantage would be disloyal.
“I’m not going to do the thing where I say because I disagree with what Tucker has said about Abdul El-Sayed, therefore I think that he’s a terrible person and I disavow him. I am never going to do that,” Vance said.
“I think it’s disloyal, and I think that anybody who conducts themselves like that in order to gain political advantage is not worthy of the vice presidency,” he added.
