Trump gives the nod to a Vance-Rubio ticket for 2028: 'That's a Dream Team'

President Donald Trump spoke positively Monday about the possibility that Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will make up the Republican ticket in the 2028 presidential election.

During a Rose Garden dinner with law enforcement officials as part of National Police Week, Trump said the Vance-Rubio duo, without getting into law enforcement, was "dreamed up" for the upcoming general election.

"Who likes J.D. Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio? All right. Sounds like a good ticket. JD is a perfect — That was a perfect ticket," said the president. He then clarified that he was not making an endorsement official: "By the way, I do believe that's a Dream Team. But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance."

Still, he added that the combination "sounds like presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate."

The scene nicely sums up the classic tactic of Trump, who likes to pit politicians from his inner circle against each other in his political projections, in this case, to choose a successor. Vance, installed in the vice presidency, usually appears as the natural successor within Trumpism. However, Rubio has been gaining weight on his own path: in addition to commanding the State Department and leading foreign policy successes in Trump's second term, he has taken on roles as acting national security adviser and has established himself as one of the men with the most responsibilities in the Administration. Trump himself praised him in March and told reporters that he believes Rubio "is going to go down in history as the best secretary of state."

That political rise of Rubio explains why the question about an eventual internal between the two continues to circulate among Republican strategists and operators. For now, neither of them has admitted plans for 2028 and both repeat that their priority is the current administration.

Rubio, who already tried for the White House in 2016 and dropped out after losing the primary to Trump, told Vanity Fair in December that he would be "one of the first people to support" Vance if the vice president decides to officially run.

Republican strategist Brian Seitchik, who worked on Trump's 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, believes these kinds of gestures are not improvised. He argued that the president is constantly gauging "how folks feel about Marco versus Vance," and noted that generating competition among his subordinates is something the president "values," a dynamic that, he said, anyone who has watched The Apprentice would recognize immediately.

For now, the only certainty is that Trump himself put the names back on the table at a public event and that his endorsement undoubtedly could decide who will be the GOP candidate in 2028.