Although he stopped short of anointing Vice President JD Vance as the 2028 GOP nominee, Trump did single him out along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others, suggesting the 2028 race could become a competitive primary on the Republican side.

“I think we have a tremendous group of people. We talked about a number of them,” Trump said when asked whether MAGA could survive without him. “You look at Marco, you look at JD Vance, who’s fantastic … I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now, just sitting here.”

GOP strategists remain adamant that Trump could single-handedly select the 2028 GOP nominee if he wanted to. Yet, the president has repeatedly refused to put his thumb on the scale, claiming it’s “too early” for such an announcement.

“Whoever he endorses is going to be the nominee. And right now, [Vance and Rubio] are the two most likely people,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, “but we’re a long way off until that decision is made.”

“As Trump’s vice president, JD Vance is the heir presumptive and odds-on favorite for the 2028 nomination,” added Dennis Lennox, another GOP strategist. “The only conceivable scenarios in which he could be displaced as heir are Republicans losing control of Congress in 2026 or Trump directly endorsing someone else as his successor. If that happens, it’s hard to see it not being Marco Rubio. He has made himself invaluable to Trump.”

Last week, Trump announced that Rubio would also serve as interim national security adviser in addition to his duties as secretary of state, acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, and acting archivist of the United States.

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Trump claimed that “Marco is great” during the Sunday interview, but also pointed to Vance’s strengths as his No. 2.

“JD is doing a fantastic job,” he said.

When Kristen Welker asked if Vance would be at the top, Trump responded, “It could very well be, I don’t want to get involved in that. I think he’s a fantastic, brilliant guy.”

The praise of the two men from Trump, over the other 10 to 20 candidates Trump said might run for president, could be a boon if either decides to launch a presidential campaign.

“The November general election is more than 1250 days away, so that means the Trump primary is give or take 1000 days away. And this is really the opening around here,” said Brian Seitchik, a Republican strategist. “There will be a lot of twists and turns regarding who’s going to get the Trump endorsement.”

“All that being said, if you’re Vance and Rubio, you certainly have a leg up,” he continued before branding them as the “blessed two.”

The explicit Trump shout-out will likely help either man increase their name identification with voters or, more importantly, with the MAGA base, which will vote in the primary and decide the movement’s fate.

However, Jason Miller, a senior adviser during Trump’s 2024 campaign and a top Trump ally, told the Washington Examiner that “nobody is running for 2028 right now.”

“In fact, it’s not even something that’s discussed in Trumpworld because everybody is solely focused on what we’re doing with President Trump these next three and a half years,” Miller cautioned, “and not publicly, not behind the scenes, nobody is saying or doing anything.”

Still, attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference in February overwhelmingly chose Vance as their favorite for the 2028 nomination, at 61%, according to the straw poll. In contrast, Rubio and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) both received 3% of support.

Trump has also hinted that other ambitious Republicans are waiting for their turn to seek the White House, although Miller downplayed 2028 rumors again.

“I interpreted the president’s answer more towards the future of the Republican Party being bright with a number of different stars,” he said.

If Trump were to hand Vance the nomination simply, it could backfire, political strategists suggested.

“What we saw in 2024 is that a lot of things happen real close to the end of the campaign that end up making a big difference,” Heath Brown, an associate professor at John Jay College and author of Roadblocked: Joe Biden’s Rocky Transition to the Presidency, said. “This far in advance, I imagine the vice president’s office would be OK without having to launch into a full public campaign mode too early.”

One Republican with close ties to the White House, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said part of the reason Trump is keeping his options open is that “by not saying what he’s going to do, it causes folks in his sphere, particularly in his administration, to work harder in case they possibly could be that person.”

The Washington Examiner contacted Vance’s office for comment.

Brown also agreed with the other experts that with the election so far away, what most matters to the race is how GOP elites, including donors, react to Trump’s comments.

“As you get closer to the election, it’s going to become more and more critical for all the candidates to line up support, including the vice president, if he’s interested in running,” said Brown. “That matters for rallying their supporters, especially their campaign backers, the financial backers. I would imagine it’s those people that are most looking to the president for a signal right now. And so I think that’s probably where this makes the biggest difference.”

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With Vance’s popularity among the Republican base mostly unblemished, some GOP strategists cast doubt that he won’t get the nomination in 2028.

“I don’t see 2028 shaping up to be a repeat of 1988 or 2000, when sitting vice presidents — Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore — faced stiff challenges for the nomination,” said Lennox. “As we saw last year, the GOP is unified behind Trump. There’s really no path to run against Trump’s anointed successor in 2028.”