President Trump Polls Crowd On Who Should Be The Next President

President Trump had a little fun during his recent White House Rose Garden Dinner.

Trump, while speaking at a dinner that was honoring law enforcement officials, asked the officers in the crowd whom they would like to see run for president in 2028.

Trump asked the crowd, “Who likes JD?”

The crowd responded with some cheers and applause.

He then asked, “Who likes Marco Rubio?”

The crowd also applauded, but it was not as loud as the applause for Vance.

The Hill reported more on Trump’s poll:

President Trump on Monday floated Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as a “dream team” ahead of the 2028 presidential election, polling attendees of a White House event on who they liked better and stopping short of offering an endorsement.

“Who likes J.D. Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio? All right. Sounds like a good ticket.

J.D. is a perfect — That was a perfect ticket,” Trump said during a dinner in the Rose Garden with law enforcement officials in honor of National Police Week.

“By the way, I do believe that’s a dream team. But these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance. But you know … I think it sounds like presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate,” he added.

Political strategists and observers have repeatedly questioned whether Trump would endorse Vance over Rubio or urge the two to run together on the same ticket.

Watch the moment Trump made the poll here:

Trump just took a 2028 poll in the White House Rose Garden, asking the crowd who they like between JD Vance and Marco Rubio, with Vance in attendance.

Absolutely incredible content. 😭 pic.twitter.com/4YtS1NJB7D

— johnny maga (@johnnymaga) May 12, 2026

The New York Times reported that President Trump has frequently asked those around him who they think should be the Republican presidential nominee in 2028:

Every now and then, while talking to officials in the Oval Office, with friends over dinner, or on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump pauses and muses aloud about a subject quietly captivating the Republican Party.

What do you think? JD or Marco?

According to multiple people close to the president, Mr. Trump asks advisers who they prefer, before frequently musing that he should just have Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio run together on the same presidential ticket in 2028.

Mr. Trump’s advisers say he is simply having fun polling people, and that 2028 is not at the top of his mind at all. Still, it would be hard for Mr. Trump to ignore that lately, the two men he refers to as “kids” are taking on bigger profiles as the midterm elections approach.

This week, Mr. Rubio appeared in the White House briefing room, affably fielding questions on the Iran war — which his team later produced into a campaign-worthy video. Then he traveled to Italy, popping up alongside Pope Leo XIV and bearing a crystal football as a gift. (“Wow, OK,” Leo, an Augustinian who has taken a vow of poverty, said to Mr. Rubio, a fellow Catholic.) Mr. Rubio also met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who, like Leo, has faced diatribes from Mr. Trump over opposition to the war. Next, Mr. Rubio will travel to China with the president.

As Mr. Rubio did his best to charm reporters back in Washington, the White House political operation sent Mr. Vance to a factory in Des Moines to help support a vulnerable House Republican, Representative Zach Nunn. While onstage, Mr. Vance launched into a well-honed attack against Democratic Party policies, and traced his dislike of those policies to his own past shifts in political identity.

“It’s heartbreaking for a kid who came from a union Democrat family to realize that Democrats these days, they seem to care more about gender transition than they do about you keeping more of your hard-earned money,” Mr. Vance told the crowd.

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Their dueling appearances, freighted with viral commentary, have generated new speculation about whether Mr. Rubio might eventually challenge Mr. Vance, the presumed front-runner, in a race for the Republican presidential nomination. According to several people close to both men, Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio, who are friends, do not want to be seen as competing against each other for the 2028 presidential nomination. Others said that it was too early to know how the race would shape up, before seeing how the Republican Party fares in this year’s midterm elections.

Who would you like to see be the Republican presidential nominee in 2028?

Let us know your thoughts below!