Could the ostracised JD Vance pull out of the 2028 presidential race?

Odious US vice-president JD Vance has long been seen as the natural heir apparent if and when Donald Trump leaves office/dies on the toilet/is finally removed from the West Wing for being mad. And indeed, all betting markets still have Vance as the most likely Republican candidate come 2028.

But might the hateful Hillbilly – increasingly isolated from the team around Trump for his lack of cheerleading for the president’s disastrous intervention in Iran – be so disillusioned he might not even bother running?

Those are the whispers in Washington: that Vance, now the lone dove in Trump’s cabinet after Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation, may abandon his bid to run in 2028 in the knowledge that what allies of the president call his “strong, silent Gary Cooper-style approach to foreign policy” has cost him the all-important presidential endorsement, now thought to be gravitating to Marco Rubio.

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White House sources have been briefing that “Vance is a non-event in the West Wing” as secretary of state Rubio’s stock has risen due to his cheerleading of the war.

“’He’s loud, he’s active,” one source told the Daily Mail. “These guys [Vance and Gabbard, the outgoing director of national intelligence] prefer to speak softly and carry a big stick, but Trump speaks loudly and carries a massive cannon.”

Trump has acknowledged the divide, conceding that his vice president was “maybe less enthusiastic” at the start of the war against Iran and “philosophically a little bit different’ on the decision to strike”.

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And now it appears Vance – who is still only 41 – may have decided to sit out the next election in favour of a 2032 or 2036 bid. This is despite the fact that the former would almost certainly see him face an incumbent – and only Jimmy Carter, the first George Bush and Trump himself have lost a re-election in the last half-century – while 2036 might see him struggle to remain politically relevant for the next decade.

One source said to be close to Vance told the Mail that it might be best for the Veep not to “own everything that’s gone on in the last couple of years”.

But an official Vance source said that: “This story is just a flimsy compilation of completely illegitimate sources who have no idea what they’re talking about.” Sounds like pretty much everyone around the Trump White House, then!