Donald Trump Is Asked If He Views J.D. Vance as His Successor. ‘No,’ Trump Replies

“It’s too early,” President Donald Trump said of endorsing Vice President J.D. Vance as the 2028 Republican presidential nominee

US President Donald Trump and US Vice President J.D. Vance in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025.

President Donald Trump says “it’s too early” to endorse his vice president, J.D. Vance, as the 2028 Republican presidential nominee.

On Monday, Feb. 10, the president joined Bret Baier on Fox News’ Special Report to discuss the first three weeks of his second term. During their conversation, Baier, 54, asked President Trump, 78, whether he sees Vance as his successor.

Baier specifically asked if Trump could envision Vance, 40, as the 2028 Republican nominee.

“No,” Trump replied.

He continued, “But he’s very capable. I mean, I don’t think that it, you know, I think you have a lot of very capable people. So far, I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early. We’re just starting.”

Donald Trump and Bret Baier.

Baier followed up, and said, “But by the time you get to the midterms, he’s going to be looking for an endorsement.”

Trump responded by adding, “Yeah, a lot of people have said that this has been the greatest opening, almost three weeks, in the history of the presidency.”

“We’ve done so much, so fast,” he said. “And we really had to cause they have really, what they’ve done to our country is so sad. It’s so sad. We’re going to be bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”

Trump’s comments follow Republican Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles’s Thursday, Jan. 23 amendment proposal to enable Trump to run for a third term in the White House in 2028.

The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which was ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s record-setting tenure in office, currently states that no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.

Trump has spoken several times about a third term and beyond. At a January rally in Las Vegas, he said, ““It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once but twice – or three or four times.”

Since Trump was inaugurated on Monday, Jan. 20, he has signed 53 executive orders, per the Federal Register. The orders concern various issues from immigration, medical research, eliminating federal diversity programs and climate change to orders defining gender.

He also pardoned the roughly 1,500 people convicted over their roles in the 2021 Jan. 6 Capitol riot and has made attempts to end birthright citizenship. The president has also tried to make changes to specific long-standing institutions in the U.S. such as the Kennedy Center.

Donald Trump and J.D. Vance on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC.

A portion of Trump’s interview with Baier first aired on Sunday, Feb. 9, during the Fox Super Bowl LIX pregame show. On Sunday, Trump attended the NFL championship game in New Orleans, the first sitting president to do so.

After leaving the game following Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance, the president sent out the message at 9:27 p.m. on his Truth Social account, instructing the Treasury Department to stop producing new pennies.

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” Trump wrote of the production process that began in 1787. “This is so wasteful!”

“I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies,” he added, referring to Scott Bessent. “Let’s rip the waste out of our great nation[‘]s budget, even if it’s a penny at a time.”