In an interview that blended political foresight with a pointed insistence on governing in the present, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday that he expects to “sit down with the president” after the 2026 midterm elections to discuss whether he might seek the presidency in 2028.
But even as Hannity pressed him on the question — noting that “two days after the midterms, we get into a cycle, meaning 2028” — Vance repeatedly redirected the conversation to what he described as the administration’s central mission: staying focused on the work voters elected them to do.
Hannity, referencing the vice president’s daily presence in the Oval Office, asked bluntly whether Vance had considered a run. “Thinking about it at all?” he prodded.
Vance acknowledged that he had “thought about what that moment might look like after the midterm elections,” but insisted he was wary of allowing political speculation to interfere with governing. He framed the temptation to plan ahead as a distraction from what he considers the administration’s immediate obligations. “Whenever I think about that, I try to put it out of my head and remind myself the American people elected me to do a job right now and my job is to do it,” he said. “If you start getting distracted and focused on what comes next, I think it actually makes you worse at the job you have.”
In remarks that underscored the administration’s broader partisan posture heading into 2026, Vance stressed what he described as President Trump’s “long-term economic revitalization effort,” arguing that Republican success in the midterms is necessary to safeguard those policies. Vance warned that Democrats, if returned to power, “are gonna try to screw up a lot of the great things the president of the United States has done over the past ten months,” describing the administration’s initiatives as “trees that have been planted, some of which won’t even bear fruit for a few years.”
He presented the midterms as a defining moment for the durability of the administration’s agenda. “I really want us to win the midterms,” he said, adding that Republicans would “do everything that we can to win.”
Only after those elections, he said, would he and the president discuss 2028. “We’re going to win the midterms… and then after that, I’m going to sit down with the president of the United States and talk to him about it.”
Still, Vance concluded with a call for discipline rather than speculation. “Let’s focus on the now because we’ve got well over a year to do as much as we can for the American people,” he said. “If we do a good job, the politics will take care of itself. If we do a terrible job, the politics will take care of itself in the other direction.”
His remarks come as President Trump has publicly mused — sometimes jokingly — about running again in 2028, despite acknowledging he is constitutionally barred. “I’m not allowed to run. It’s too bad. I mean, it’s too bad,” Trump said last month, before noting, “But we have a lot of great people.”
Among the names he floated for the 2028 Republican ticket were Vance himself and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, signaling the president’s eagerness to shape the party’s future even as he remains central to its present.
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