On Monday night, Trump informally polled his guests at a dinner in the White House Rose Garden about their favorite candidate. “Who likes J.D. Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?” he said, before suggesting that Vance Rubio’s ticket would be a “dream team.”
Trump juniorThe teamwork was a moment of humor that masked the fact that over the past few days, White House aides have been grappling with the difficult – and still elusive – question of who the Republican nominee will be.
The president has already taken several early polls in recent weeks, a source familiar with the matter told WIRED. They say the results were notable: When Trump polled donors at Mar-a-Lago, they favored Rubio. But when Trump recently polled a group of law enforcement officers who the White House believes might be more representative of ordinary voters, they favored Vance.
Vance remains the presumptive nominee, White House sources told me, but he is not taking anything for granted. The sources said the vice president’s top advisers actually began the week meeting in retreat to discuss political strategy.
He has also taken steps to bolster his policy team, which has remained largely intact since his days as a U.S. senator, ahead of what could be a painful midterm election for Republicans as they grapple with the politically toxic fallout from the Iran war and a House GOP spending package that allocated $1 billion to Trump’s auditorium project, among other issues.
Vance began discussing changes to his team, including adding Cliff Sims as the new national security adviser and elevating Will Martin to be his deputy chief of staff, in January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Sims, whose new position was announced yesterday, is widely viewed in Washington as a ruthless political operative who can support the vice president through his long experience in Trumpworld and his close relationships with a range of senior administration officials.
Chief among them is his ties to CIA Director John Ratcliffe, for whom Sims spent the past year as an outside adviser, according to multiple sources familiar with the arrangement. Sources told me they expect Vance and Ratcliffe to work more closely together, thus significantly increasing the vice president’s influence over national security policy.
Sims, who is not expected to start for several weeks, will also likely begin shaping the vice president’s political messaging. He previously served as a White House press aide and then as director of communications in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Of course, the person heading the National Security Council is none other than Rubio, who holds the title of Trump’s National Security Advisor in addition to Secretary of State.
Chat about Rubio’s potential as a 2028 candidate reignited last week when he filled in for press secretary Carolyn Leavitt to brief reporters on the Iran war. His appearance reignited a series of news stories about the possibility of him running for president.
“There is no secret plan to make Rubio president,” said one Rubio ally, who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that the secretary of state did not volunteer to do the press conference, which instead came at the request of the White House.
However, Robbieworld was quietly pleased with the positive coverage his briefing generated, according to people familiar with the matter. The White House then posted a clip of Rubio describing his vision for America on X, which was almost like a presidential speech.
