It is the political question consuming Washington, and President Donald Trump is apparently not waiting for anyone else to bring it up.
Vice President JD Vance confirmed during a national television interview that Trump regularly steers conversations toward the 2028 presidential race — and that the vice president has full confidence the president will back him no matter what he decides.
Vance sat down with “CBS Sunday Morning” to discuss his forthcoming memoir and field questions about the White House’s open secret: the 2028 succession conversation is already well underway.
“I never bring it up. But sure, the president brings it up a lot of stuff, sometimes publicly, sometimes privately,” Vance said.
The vice president painted a picture of a commander-in-chief who cannot resist the pull of political strategy, even at this early stage.
“The president’s a political animal. He loves this stuff. He’s fascinated by it,” Vance said. “It’s not coy, or it’s not positive or negative. He kind of talks about it like, ‘What’s going to happen?'”
For months, Vance has deflected 2028 questions with practiced patience, consistently telling reporters that no decision will come until after the midterm elections. Yet Trump has made that posture increasingly difficult to maintain.
Last month, the president turned a public event into an impromptu political straw poll, openly asking the crowd to weigh in on his potential successors.
“Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?” Trump called out to attendees.
When the crowd responded, Trump did not hesitate with a follow-up: “All right. Sounds like a good ticket.”
The moment underscored the unusual dynamic at play inside the Republican Party, with the sitting president casually auditing his own legacy while both men named remain officially uncommitted.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has moved to settle at least one piece of the equation, publicly declaring he will not seek the Republican nomination if Vance enters the race.
Trump, however, has stopped short of throwing his weight behind either man.
Despite that silence, Vance expressed zero doubt about where the president’s support will ultimately land.
“I have no doubt that the president of the United States is going to be very supportive of anything that I ultimately decide to do,” Vance said. “But we really just haven’t talked about what that thing will be.”
The vice president returned to his established timeline, making clear the decision belongs to his family first and the political world second.
“Usha and I will absolutely sit down and talk about what comes next for our family,” Vance said. “The way I make decisions is, I try not to make them until I absolutely must.”
The “CBS Sunday Morning” appearance served a dual purpose, with Vance promoting his second memoir, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” scheduled for release Tuesday. The book chronicles his personal journey back to religious belief, and the interview gave second lady Usha Vance an opportunity to speak about a deeply private chapter that shaped the couple’s family life.
Usha revealed that the murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk became an unexpected catalyst for the couple’s decision to have a fourth child.
She described how the tragedy forced a conversation about what truly mattered and what would be left unfinished if left undone.
“I think it really heightened JD’s sense that he’d been talking about this for a while, this sense that there was this possibility of having another kid whom he could love as much as the three that we had,” Usha said.
The gravity of that moment, she explained, cut through uncertainty and brought the decision into sharp focus.
“And it really did crystallize for [him], that sense that if you could have that other child, then you would have nothing to regret,” Usha said. “And if we couldn’t have that other child, then we were very happy with the children that we had. So, it was very powerful, what [Erika] said about her own family.”
