WASHINGTON, May 7 — It was the perfect split-screen for the race to succeed Donald Trump — so long as your name is Marco Rubio and not JD Vance.In a packed White House briefing...
US Vice President JD Vance speaks during an event with Representative Zach Nunn , at Ex-Guard Industries, a manufacturing facility in Des Moines, Iowa, May 5, 2026.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio gives a thumbs up as he exits following a press briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, DC, May 5, 2026. — Reuters pics! Plus, enjoy an additional FREE RM10 when you sign up using code VERSAMM10 with a min. cash-in of RM100 today. T&Cs apply.
WASHINGTON, May 7 — It was the perfect split-screen for the race to succeed Donald Trump — so long as your name is Marco Rubio and not JD Vance. In a packed White House briefing room, journalists shouted over each other in a bid to get a question from the US secretary of state.
At the same time Vice President Vance — Rubio’s most likely rival for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination — was hundreds of miles away from the action at a political fundraiser in Oklahoma. The 54-year-old appeared to be enjoying his time standing in for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is on maternity leave.
He fielded a series of questions on Iran, Cuba and China with a relaxed style and dashes of humour — and little of the invective that Trump often unleashes in his briefing room appearances. The self-confessed rap fan even threw in some hip-hop lyrics, declaring Iran’s leaders to be, in the words of Cypress Hill, “insane in the brain.
” “Rubio just wrapped up his FIRST White House Press Briefing, and he absolutely knocked it out of the park,” conservative influencer Nick Sortor said on X.Could it mark the moment when Rubio’s star definitively rose in the race to lead a post-Trump Republican party in two and a half years? Polling has suggested that Vance, 41, has a large lead among Republican voters.
Neither man has officially declared his intention to run — and Rubio himself has publicly said that the “veep” is a friend and insisted that he would not run in 2028 if Vance is a candidate. But in Washington there has been growing speculation that Trump increasingly favours Rubio. Vance’s odds on prediction markets have collapsed in recent weeks.
While Vance’s life story — growing up in poverty in an Appalachian community beset by opioid addiction — is tailor-made to appeal to Trump’s base, he has sometimes struggled to connect with voters. Notably, his travels took him to Iowa, the crucial mid-western state where Republicans will cast their first votes for the 2028 Republican nominee — and which first propelled Trump towards the White House in 2016.
The Oklahoma fundraiser meanwhile reflects Vance’s overlooked role as Republican National Committee finance chief — which could help build his grip on a party that has never quite seemed to warm to him. And he stopped in Ohio to vote in a primary in the state where he was formerly a senator — and his son Vivek was able to cast a kids’ vote in a contest between two mythical figures.
‘You’re not ready for my DJ name’Back in 2016 he compared his future boss to Hitler. And the former marine and anti-interventionist has kept a low profile over Trump’s Iran war. By contrast, Rubio is a long-term foreign policy hawk who has won Trump’s praise over the Venezuela and Iran military operations. It was Rubio, and not devout Catholic convert Vance, that Trump dispatched to meet Pope Leo XIV this week amid tensions over Iran.
The White House’s X feed on Tuesday even seemed to lean towards Rubio, announcing his press briefing with the caption “Another job? ” and posting a picture of him on dozens of channels. Rubio will know that two years is an eternity in politics — and that the last former secretary of state to run for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, suffered a stunning loss to Trump.
Instead, he was content to bask in the attention at the podium, while keeping his ambitions to himself. That includes whether he has an alternative identity as a DJ after a video clip at the weekend showed a besuited Rubio behind the decks at a wedding even as Iran negotiations continued. US report says fuel supply cut before 2022 China Eastern crash that killed 132 in China’s deadliest air disaster
JD Vance Republican Nomination White House Briefing Trump Influence Iran Negotiations
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Pulitzers spotlight reporting on Trump and his policies, and their devasting effectsNEW YORK, May 5 — Coverage of the Trump administration dominated the Pulitzer Prizes announced yesterday as the prize committee unleashed a searing attack on US President Donald...
Read more »
S. Korea to probe ship fire in Strait of Hormuz, Trump blames Iranian attackLONDON, May 4 (Reuters) - It is not the record that Chelsea's owners dreamt of when they bought the club four years ago - Monday's 3-1 home defeat by Nottingham Forest means the Londoners have now lost six league games in a row for the first time since 1993.
Read more »
EU bersedia hadapi sebarang kemungkinan selepas ancaman tarif kereta TrumpKetua Suruhanjaya Eropah (EC), Ursula von der Leyen menegaskan blok itu bersedia dengan apa jua senario selepas Presiden Amerika Syarikat
Read more »
Cuba tuduh Rubio berbohong mengenai sekatan minyakCuba menuduh Setiausaha Negara Amerika Syarikat (AS), Marco Rubio berbohong selepas beliau menafikan Washington sedang melaksanakan
Read more »
Rubio dakwa 10 pelaut maut di Selat HormuzSeramai 10 pelaut awam terkorban akibat konflik yang berterusan di Selat Hormuz, kata Setiausaha Negara Amerika Syarikat (AS), Marco Rubio
Read more »
Democrats accuse Trump’s commerce chief of Epstein cover-upLawmakers portray Howard Lutnick as evasive and dishonest, contradicting earlier statements on severing ties with sex offender.
Read more »