UNCONFIRMED: this rests on The New York Times's reporting from unnamed people close to Trump; other outlets restate it, and the White House denied it.
A New York Times report published May 30, 2026, by White House correspondents Katie Rogers and Tyler Pager, says that in conversations with aides and allies, President Trump often raises whether Vice President JD Vance has what it takes to go all the way, and usually answers that he is not so sure. The Times noted Trump is not abandoning Vance: he involves him in major decisions and has given him high-profile chances to position himself for 2028.
According to accounts of the report by the Daily Beast and others, citing more than a dozen insiders, Trump has privately compared Vance's performance unfavorably to his own, noting that Vance had never won a difficult political race without his help. He has repeatedly brought up Vance dropping Ohio State's national championship trophy at a White House event, complained about how often Vance takes vacations, and questioned sending him to lead talks in Pakistan on ending the Iran war. Chief of Staff Susie Wiles advised Vance to take a break from social media because the online fighting was beneath his office, the Times reported, citing people familiar with those interactions.
Marjorie Taylor Greene told the Times that Vance's shifting stance on the Iran war had damaged him: “There's nothing that can protect him anymore.” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement that “any false media narratives from unknown and unnamed sources fabricating stories clearly do not have any knowledge of the truth,” and separately called the Wiles account “Complete fake news.” A Times spokeswoman said, “We're confident in the accuracy of our reporting.” The account rests on the Times's unnamed sources and has not been independently confirmed by another outlet's own reporting. Trump has also set up a 2028 contest between Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (see Trump Says Vance Isn't Going to Pakistan, Then Says He Is, Then Vance Is Spotted at the White House).
Correction (October 2, 2026): The entry put “had never won a difficult political race without his help” in quotation marks as Trump's words; that is a paraphrase of the reporting, not a quotation, and the quotation marks have been removed. It also gave Cheung's statement as “false media narratives from unknown and unnamed sources” without the rest of the sentence; the full statement is now quoted. The title said Trump mocks Vance “as a Weak 2028 Heir” and that he “never won a tough race without help”; the Times reported Trump is not sure Vance can win and is not abandoning him, so the title now says he questions it. The entry's date has been moved from May 31 to May 30, when the Times published.