Grogan says contenders must chart a new course while Trump has the megaphone

Shivaram contrasts Vance’s identity shifts with Harris’s effort to rebuild hers

Grogan set a broader test for the 2028 Republican contest than winning the nomination. “It’s not just about winning the nomination. It’s about charting a new course in the context where Trump still has the megaphone,” said Grogan, who served as head of the Domestic Policy Council during Trump’s first term. He asked how a contender could take what was viewed as the successes of “Trumpism” and make them part of the contender’s own voice, then move away from policies viewed as unpopular or unpalatable.

Leila Fadel asked whether the Republican losses could produce a different approach from potential GOP contenders in 2028. She said Republicans had tried to break from Trump in the past and “it never really worked,” describing him as “a figure with a certain popularity.”

Deepa Shivaram answered conditionally. Because this was Trump’s last term as president, she said it was possible Republicans might try to move beyond the politics of Trump and work in a non-Trumpcentric way for the first time since 2016. She cited Florida governor Ron DeSantis as a potential contender trying that approach. Shivaram said the problem potential contenders would encounter was that Trump would still have the megaphone during the 2028 campaign.

The reporting also documented Vance’s public activity after the election. Shivaram said he had not done anything in public since election night, while NPR expected him to speak later that day at an event for veterans’ small businesses. The segment described Vance as trying to recast his political future after serving as the administration’s No. 2.

Fadel asked specifically whether Vance had made any public statements about why he believed Republicans lost badly. Shivaram pointed to a lengthy post on X after the election in which Vance gave two big reasons for the GOP’s losses: the war with Iran, which Trump started, and the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Shivaram said the post did not explicitly criticize Trump. It did, however, highlight rhetorical differences between Vance’s campaign messaging about the war’s high costs and Trump’s position. On the campaign trail, Vance had acknowledged the pain people were feeling because of those costs, while his post said outright that the war was a problem for Republicans.

Trump, by contrast, said the war was a reason Republicans lost but also said he had no regrets and would do it again, Shivaram said. She called that “a big difference between the two.”

Shivaram said the post showed how Vance was trying to work out his political future. If he ran for president in 2028, she said, he would have to navigate gaining voter support while continuing his No. 2 job, standing with the president even though the president and his decisions were unpopular.

Shivaram said a different direction could be especially hard for Vance because his boss was not open to criticism and demanded loyalty. Fadel called that an ongoing political problem for vice presidents, saying they “end up having a lot of baggage based on the president they worked so closely with.” Shivaram agreed with Fadel’s assessment.

Shivaram said Harris had confronted the same problem in 2024. One of her biggest missteps, she said, was staying too close to Biden, not doing anything differently and saying that she would do anything differently. As Harris weighed whether to run again in 2028, Shivaram said, she was trying to reestablish her political identity.

Shivaram said rebuilding an identity was not something Vance really had to do because he had been “rejiggering” his political identity for years. He had once called himself a “Never Trumper,” she said, but took that position back after he started running for office.

Fadel framed the broader discussion with a qualified timeline: the 2026 midterm results might still be getting finalized even as the 2028 campaign was already beginning. She said the process was still early and that, after last week’s results, the path forward for possible Republican candidates, including Vance, could be complicated.