In the early hours of Feb. 28, President Donald Trump and his administration joined Israel in launching a wave of strikes on Iran, and later that night, he asked a group of roughly 25 GOP donors at Mar-a-Lago in Florida whom they would prefer he support for president in 2028: Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Vice President JD Vance.
Attendees overwhelmingly indicated Rubio through their cheering, according to two people who were at the event. “It was almost unanimous for Marco,” said a person in attendance, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Yeah, that’s right,” said the second attendee about the informal Trump poll. “It was clear, at least that night.” Another person in the room characterised the response as more “evenly split” between Rubio and Vance, NBC News reported.
The donors included New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and billionaire Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson.
A former Trump administration official said the gathering did not necessarily mean Rubio was the new favourite over Vance for 2028. “The Mar-a-Lago donor crew are not JD people,” the former official said. “He did not get picked [to be vice president] because of the Mar-a-Lago crowd. If you remember, that crowd was lobbying the president to pick Marco.” The former official added: “So, I’d say stuff like that is a bit gamed. If there were a poll taken tomorrow, I’d bet JD is still up by 40 [points], or whatever it is.”
It was not the first time Trump quizzed those in his orbit about how he should engage in the forthcoming political fight to replace him as the Republican standard-bearer, and it indicated that the president planned to play a big role and was taking an early interest in the future of the party. Trump appeared to be relishing his potential to be a kingmaker in a race that could potentially pit top members of his own administration against each other, underscoring how fluid things were in Trump’s orbit and how quickly the president’s thinking could shift.
“The President has assembled an all-star team that has achieved unprecedented success in just over one year,” White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “No amount of crazed media speculation about Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio will deter this Administration’s mission of fighting for the American people.”
For months, Vance was seen as the front-runner to become the 2028 GOP nominee, a dynamic underscored by most public polling and Trump’s own comments. An NBC News poll released last week found that 77% of Republican voters had a positive view of Vance, compared to 66% for Rubio.
Vance or Rubio: Who is Trump's pick?
In August, Trump told Fox News that Vance was “most likely“ the heir to the MAGA movement and “probably favored at this point.” He mentioned Rubio in the same breath. “In all fairness, he’s the vice president, and I think Marco is also somebody that maybe would get together with JD in some form,” Trump said.
Trump also mentioned Rubio in a May interview with NBC News, when he named him as a “great” potential GOP leader. In an interview last month with NBC News, Trump weighed in on the differences between the two men. “I would say one is slightly more diplomatic than the other,” Trump said, without naming them, though diplomacy is Rubio’s job. “I think they’re both of very high intelligence.”
In recent weeks, Trump increasingly praised Rubio, who because of his duties as secretary of state and national security adviser was more front and centre as the administration increasingly focused on foreign policy fights in Venezuela, Iran and potentially Cuba.
At a White House ceremony Thursday for Major League Soccer champions Inter Miami CF, Trump twice called special attention to Rubio. “I’m telling you, he’s going to go down as the best secretary of state in the country’s history, Marco Rubio,” Trump said. He added: “I don’t want him to get too popular. You know, when they get too popular, all of a sudden you see, ‘Where’s Marco. He’s not around anymore.’”
While Rubio’s profile rose thanks to his foreign policy portfolio, Vance, by contrast, faded more into the background.
Rubio was present at the makeshift Mar-a-Lago war room when the Iran strikes were launched, while Vance was in Washington, pictured at the head of the table where the president would typically sit, drinking a Mountain Dew in the Situation Room. A spokesperson said Vance was not at Mar-a-Lago because of administration security protocols “to maintain operational secrecy” and “to limit the president and vice president co-locating away from the White House.”
Vance was the first member of the administration to defend the war on national TV. He and second lady Usha Vance joined Trump on Saturday as the remains of fallen US service members arrived at Dover Air Force Base. But since his March 2 appearance on Fox News, Vance did not have much of a public-facing role in the war messaging, and his once-aggressive social media presence was relatively quiet.
“The entire national security team, including the Vice President, have been constantly engaged in active deliberations surrounding the operations in Iran,” Vance spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk said in a statement for this article.
The war placed Vance, an Iraq War veteran who long railed against the US involving itself in messy foreign conflicts, in a position that did not align neatly with his personal views. While Vance was more hawkish on Iran and its nuclear capabilities, he expressed reservations about attacking the country, a person familiar with his thinking told NBC News.
Trump didn't pick any candidate till now but his past speeches do reflect that he liked both of them and he wanted any of them to lead the GOP.