US President Donald Trump on Wednesday declined to take sides in the debate over who is most likely to be his successor in the 2028 Republican presidential campaign - his Vice President J.D. Vance or his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, UNN reports with reference to Reuters.
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Vance, a former Republican senator from Ohio, said he would talk to Trump about the possibility of running after the November midterm elections.
Among Republican insiders, there is also speculation that Rubio, a former Florida senator who ran for president as a Republican in 2016 and lost to Trump, could run for president.
Rubio has not closed the door to running in 2028, but has praised Vance as a strong potential candidate.
Trump said he was "inclined" to endorse a successor when asked about Vance and Rubio during an NBC News interview, but added that he didn't want to get into the topic now.
"We have three years. I don't want to, you know, I have two people who are doing a great job. I don't want to argue, or I don't want to use the word 'fight' - it won't be a fight. But look, J.D. is fantastic, and Marco is fantastic," Trump said.
Trump has often said that the two men should run together on the same ticket. The 2028 election will have a wide-open race on both the Republican and Democratic sides, with a large number of candidates expected.
Perhaps hinting at Rubio, the country's top diplomat, Trump said of the pair: "I would say one is a little more diplomatic than the other."
He called them both people of very high intelligence.
"I think there's a difference in style," Trump said. "You know, you can see the style yourself. But they're both very capable. I really think this: a combination of J.D. and Marco would be very hard to beat, I think. But in politics, you never know, do you?"
In the interview, Trump also seemed to reconsider the possibility of running for an unconstitutional third term. He flirted with the idea last year but later backed away from it.
Trump said he could run for a third term06.01.26, 19:43 • [views_5626]
Asked if he saw "any scenario" in which he would still be president when the next president's term begins in January 2029, Trump replied: "I don't know. It would be interesting."