On a recent episode of Today, Explained, I explored Donald Trump’s ongoing succession wars, and whether the president that’s upended the Republican Party is taking an active role in deciding who might replace him.
The short version: The race to inherit MAGA, already underway, runs through Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump has every incentive to keep everyone guessing about how it ends.
As a guest host of Today, Explained, I talked to my former colleague, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who has covered Trump for years, and recently released a new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, which she co-wrote with Times reporter Jonathan Swan.
Here are three things that stuck out:
1. It’s Vance’s to lose — but it’s not a given
“Vance is the presumptive frontrunner right now, and it’s hard for me to see who else that could be,” Haberman said. Rubio, Donald Trump Jr., and the Turning Point network have all signaled they’re lining up behind the vice president as Trump’s heir. Rubio has gone as far as telling Vanity Fair that if Vance runs, “he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him.”
But being the frontrunner isn’t the same as having been anointed. Regime Change lays out real fault lines between Trump and his vice president; over the Iran strikes and the Epstein files, Vance repeatedly landed on the opposite side of the president. On the decision to go to war, Haberman reported, Vance “was the only one who really argued forcefully with the president,” and “it cost him with Trump.”
That offense could be remembered when the next Republican primary arrives.
2. Trump plans to stick around
The biggest obstacle to a clean handoff may be that Trump doesn’t want one. “Trump doesn’t want to cede the stage to anybody,” Haberman said. “The second that he anoints somebody or backs somebody or whatever, the clock starts ticking on his own relevance.”
And there’s nothing in his history, she added, to suggest he’ll ride quietly into retirement: “There is nothing in his history that suggests that he’s just going to go off and do paintings like George W. Bush.” Whoever wins the Republican nomination in 2028 should expect Trump to still be standing next to them — and still expecting credit.
3. Trump still dangles Rubio over Vance
Even with the field seemingly settled, Trump keeps reminding Vance that it isn’t. The most vivid scene in Regime Change comes from an October dinner in the White House Blue Room, with Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. executives at the table alongside the Vances and Rubio. Trump turned to Murdoch and asked what he thought of JD. “JD has the potential to be great,” Murdoch offered — a pointed answer from a man who had tried to talk Trump out of picking Vance in the first place. “Thanks a lot, Rupert,” Vance said.
Then Trump asked, “Well, what about Marco?” Murdoch’s reply, according to Haberman: “Marco is brilliant.” After that, Haberman says, the table got “uncomfortable.”
There’s no evidence Rubio is actually running — “quite the opposite,” Haberman said. But Trump has always pitted rivals against each other, and by Haberman’s account, he simply has better personal chemistry with Rubio than with Vance — a striking turn given the “Little Marco” cruelty of 2016.
So will Vance get the endorsement he needs? “I think anybody who is counting on Donald Trump’s anything often ends up pretty disappointed,” she said.
There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
The post The GOP nomination is Vance’s to lose. And he might lose it. appeared first on Vox.
