VP courts skeptical conservatives as 2028 jockeying looms
Vice President JD Vance is working to mend and expand the coalition that returned President Trump to the White House in 2024, smoothing the harder edges of the president’s statements or expanding on them in a campaign-season appeal to uneasy conservatives ahead of November’s midterm elections.
In remarks and interviews over the past week, Vance has restated several of Trump’s recent statements for a skeptical audience. Asked on Monday about Trump saying last week that he was “proudly banning” CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House, Vance said: “I take some issue with the premise, he’s not banning media outlets,” and called withholding access from some outlets a reasonable step.
Earlier this month, after Trump promised every American adult $5,000 if they keep Republicans in power — prompting Democratic accusations that the president was trying to buy votes — Vance went on Fox News to explain the plan. “What the president is just saying is…if you keep us in power and allow us to continue to do these things, then you’re going to share in some of the benefits,” he said.
Vance has also shifted his public posture on the Iran war as Americans’ concern with the conflict has grown and gas and diesel prices have risen. He frequently appears on Fox News to defend the prolonged conflict, which he initially said would be over quickly and which, to some voters, violates Trump’s campaign promise not to start any new wars. Vance has gone from saying that the war in Iran would be over quickly to acknowledging that it will continue past the midterms. Trump has said he is trying to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The vice president leads Republicans in early 2028 primary polls that often include Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Donald Trump Jr., according to the Journal. When Vance spoke at the Dallas midterm GOP convention earlier this month, some members of the crowd chanted “48! 48!” — Trump is the 47th U.S. president. No Republican has formally launched a presidential run, and jockeying is expected to begin shortly after the midterms.
“Trump brings the clarity, and JD provides authentic reinforcement,” said John Ashbrook, a Republican strategist and co-host of the Ruthless podcast. “It’s a political ham-and-egg routine that works very well together.” Steve Deace, an Iowa-based radio host who hosted Vance this month, said: “He can distill things down in a way that people can understand.”
Vance has traveled and fundraised across the country as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. He has publicly and privately acknowledged that the coalition that sent Republicans to the White House in 2024 is fraying. “Friends, there is more work to do, of course,” Vance said in North Carolina on Monday. “It will take more time and the support, of course, of our great American people to finish the job.” “Just give us two more years,” he pleaded to conservatives last week in a podcast interview. In a closed-door meeting with House Republicans last Tuesday, Vance told members facing tough races to paint Democrats as crazy and to remind voters that the Republican Party is still digging out from what it inherited from the previous administration.
White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a statement: “Both President Trump and Vice President Vance are sharing the same message with the American people: If Republicans hold Congress and keep delivering on President Trump’s agenda, American families will have more money in their pockets, secure borders and safer streets.”
At a closed-door luncheon with donors at the Dallas convention, GOP donor Hal Lambert said Vance acknowledged intraparty disagreement. “I think JD is trying to say, ‘Look guys, I know there’s disagreement here, but the other side is so radical—this isn’t the party of Bill Clinton,’” Lambert said. “We are talking about crazy people.” Two people close to the vice president said he is both mending fences within the GOP ahead of a potential presidential campaign and, in the words of the Journal, “leading by example for an increasingly fractured conservative coalition.”
Vance has also courted his critics on the right. He has faced pushback from conservatives over his position that the United States should temper its relationship with Israel, saying as recently as earlier this month that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East should not be “subservient to the state of Israel.” He met recently with Sid Rosenberg, a 77 WABC host who has publicly attacked Vance for maintaining a friendship with Tucker Carlson, a critic of Israel who has hosted Holocaust deniers on his podcast. Rosenberg, who often speaks to Trump, said on X that he “enjoyed my time with the Vice President and it gave us a chance to get to know each other.” Vance has defended his relationship with Carlson as one he won’t abandon because they disagree on politics. He also hosted a Shabbat dinner last week that included Republican donor Paul Singer and Norm Coleman, chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, a close friend of Vance, said the vice president has been offering “an aspiration for the future, not just of the party or the conservative movement, but for the everyday American.” Roberts added: “Some conservative leader desperately needed to say that, and in a lot of ways, and this is sort of ironic, I guess it couldn’t be Trump,” pointing in particular to Vance’s speech at the Dallas GOP convention — “because people have heard Trump say things like that. It needed to be someone else.”