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Trump decides: In 2028 J.D Vance is out. Guess who’s in…

By:

“On the Holmes Front” with Frank Holmes

While America is focused on the war in Iran, a second war is quietly raging inside the Republican Party to determine who will control the MAGA movement two years from now—and members of the donor class say they have picked their candidate.

The GOP’s big money people don’t want Vice President J.D. Vance, a populist who spent time on Wall Street but maintained his ties to forgotten American communities like the Ohio hometown he memorialized in Hillbilly Elegy.

The donors have told the media their odds-on favorite for 2028 is Secretary of State Marco Rubio—and they’re already plotting to wrangle the Republican presidential nomination for him.

“Donors and surrogates who support Rubio” privately “described an emerging, behind-the-scenes effort to elevate him within the party and stand up a potential ‘draft Rubio’ effort following the midterms,” reported ABC News.

The two wars became one on February 28, the first night of Operation Epic Fury. While Marco Rubio watched the early scenes of the war unfold by President Trump’s side at Mar-a-Lago, Vance monitored the situation 992 miles away in Washington sitting next to administration outcast Tulsi Gabbard.

The same evening, President Trump asked his advisers and donors who they prefer as the Republicans’ 2028 standard-bearer: Vance or Rubio.

“It was almost unanimous for Marco,” one attendee told NBC News.

“It’s 80-20 Marco,” said another Trump fundraiser, although a third source said the room was a little more “evenly split.”

But the Trump administration has already decided on Marco in 2028, according to one well-connected hedge fund manager.

“From my sources in the administration,” wrote Doug Kass, president of Seabreeze Partners Management in Palm Beach, the Trump administration’s 2028 presidential primaries is now “Vance Out, Rubio In.”

In fact, one member of the U.S. Senate says there are already signs the fix is in for the next set of primaries.

A Republican senator said lately Trump only “talks about Marco and not J.D.,” while “J.D. is wandering in the wilderness.”

That’s a huge shift for the man Trump used to call “Little Marco.”

Rubio started his political career as a protege of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and, after he got elected to the Senate, signed off on the “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan for illegal aliens.

In 2016, he attacked President Trump hard, even demeaning the future president’s…male prowess…and came up with a plan to steal the presidential nomination.

But President Trump, who has the thickest skin in politics, took Rubio into his inner circle and even considered Rubio instead of Vance to replace Mike Pence as his vice president.

Now the two are battling it out again.

President Trump has said he’s “inclined” to name a successor for 2028, but has usually said the two should run together—without naming which one should head the ticket.

“If they formed a group it would be unstoppable,” he said.

Similarly, White House communications director Steven Cheung told ABC News that both the vice president and the secretary of State are part of Trump’s “all-star team.”

Vice President J.D. Vance is not without strong supporters. President Trump decided on Vance thanks to heavy lobbying from the late Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, and the Kirk family still firmly backs him.

“We are going to get my husband’s friend J.D. Vance elected” as the 48th president of the United States in 2028, Erika Kirk told a Turning Point conference last December.

Vance has also won the favor of Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson, as well as ties to pro-Trump billionaires Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

Some people inside the room warn not to read too much into the Mar-a-Lago “Draft Rubio” movement. “The Mar-a-Lago donor crew are not J.D. people,” said one person inside the room.

The Mar-a-Lago poll seemed “a bit gamed.” said a Trump administration official. “If you remember, that crowd was lobbying the president to pick Marco” as vice president.

Besides, “donors don’t pick the nominee — the base picks,” a senior Republican operative told ABC News. “Donors tried to abandon President Trump and tried to pick (Florida Gov. Ron) DeSantis, and we all saw how that went.”

But it’s going to be an epic battle, with the Big Money on the side of Rubio. And it spells doom for at least two 2028 Republican presidential hopefuls.

The big losers are Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both of whom desperately want to wage a second presidential campaign against someone other than Donald Trump.

Cruz has leaked out plans for a 2028 presidential race…and no one has responded.

But well-funded online campaigns have backed Rubio since the day the Cuban-American Republican became secretary of State.that’s opened up a huge fight over what it means to be MAGA.

“The hawkish Rubio has reinvented America First as not quasi-isolationism, but neo-interventionism,” wrote political analyst Chris Stirewalt. “Rubio and the other hawks have succeeded so well in turning Trump’s ‘no new wars’ platform into a war-of-the-month sampler pack.”

Vance has informed the media he had doubts about the war with Iran, rumors President Trump verified by saying the veep was “less enthusiastic” about the war. In a joint press conference this week, Vance limited the operation’s aims by saying President Trump promised only that “Iran should not have a nuclear weapon”—not that the U.S. is fighting a war of regime change or nation-building.

For now, the war is between Rubio and Vance—and everything hinges on how the Iran war comes out.

If the war goes well, Rubio benefits. If it goes poorly, Vance seems the wiser strategist.

For now, the “excursion” means a war most Americans oppose, skyrocketing gasoline prices, and distrust and division inside Trump’s winning 2024 electoral coalition.

It’s possible the Iran war ended Trump’s presidency and Marco Rubio’s, too.

About the Author

Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”