The scene has the air of an Ancien Régime court. Donald Trump loves these kinds of dinners during which he challenges a small group of billionaires. It reminds him of the time when he presented his show “The Apprentice”. At the end of February, at Mar-a-Lago, the president brought together around twenty major donors. Under the gilt of his Palm Beach residence, familiar figures of American capitalism, including Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. At dessert, Trump asks a question in the form of a game: who should he support in 2028? Hands are raised. According to NBC, Marco Rubio was almost unanimous. The scene is misleading. Mar-a-Lago is not JD Vance’s America. Across the country, the balance of power is reversed: Vance maintains a massive lead.
Between these two men, the contrast is primarily biographical. JD Vance, 41, is the battered child of industrial Appalachian Ohio. Raised by his grandmother in a declining white America, former navy passed through Yale, he established himself with his novel Hillbilly Elegychronicle of a social divide adapted for the screen by Ron Howard. His policy is based on the idea that America must first repair itself before repairing other countries.
The life of Rubio, 54, tells a different story. Son of Cuban exiles, raised in the story of an America of refuge and moral power, he has long embodied an interventionist conservatism. Senator from Florida for more than a decade, he was one of the faces of this right with Bushian accents before making a strategic shift into the Trumpian orbit. The two men share one thing in common: Catholicism. Vance converted as an adult, in an intellectual process that he describes as founding. Rubio returned to Catholicism after a stint with the Mormons and then the Baptists.
Since his arrival as vice-president, Vance has imposed a line that is sometimes confusing for the Republican establishment. Fewer external commitments, more economic confrontation, particularly with China. “We cannot be the police of the world and rebuild our country at the same time”he said during a trip to the Midwest last February. Distrustful of traditional alliances, he questions everything – Ukraine, NATO, the Middle East – in a reflex of systematic doubt.
Facing him, Rubio advances differently. More discreet, but omnipresent on the international scene. Since his appointment to the State Department, he has increased his travels, reactivated alliances, reassured partners sometimes destabilized by Washington’s procrastination. “The world remains dangerous. If America goes backwards, others advance”he insisted in Congress at the beginning of March.
The vice president speaks to the grassroots, the secretary of state speaks to the world
Rubio and Trump were not born allies. They hated each other at first. And publicly. In the spring of 2016, during the Republican primaries, Trump shattered all codes, destroying candidates and conventions. Rubio still embodies a classic, Reaganite right, convinced that all this will eventually pass. Trump taunts him. His nickname for the Florida senator: “Little Marco”. Became a meeting slogan.
Rubio cashes in. In front of his supporters, in Roanoke, Virginia, he changes register. On stage, wearing Beatles boots to gain a few centimeters, his voice almost amused, he blurted out: “He always calls me “Little Marco”. I’ll admit, he’s taller than me… But his hands are the size of someone who’s 5’9″. And you know what they say about men with small hands…” The room explodes with laughter. For the first and last time in his life, he is playing in Trump’s backyard.
A few days later, during a debate in Detroit, Trump counterattacked live. He raises his hands facing the cameras, palms open: “I guarantee there’s no problem. I guarantee it. » Two men who want to be presidents of the United States, bickering like schoolyard kids. Rubio then allows himself everything. He calls Trump“con artist seeking to perpetrate the greatest hoax in American political history”taunts “the man with the worst self-tanner in America”. But the momentum is for Trump. Rubio collapsed at the polls in his own state, Florida, and withdrew from the race.
What follows is less well known. A few weeks later, backstage at a debate, Rubio approached Trump before the cameras rolled. He whispers to her: “I’m sorry I said that.” That’s not who I am, I shouldn’t have. » It is there, off-camera, that the reconciliation really begins. Since then, Rubio has adapted, integrated Trumpian priorities: migratory firmness, rivalry with Beijing, economic sovereignty. While maintaining a more classic vision of the American role.
If Rubio learned to speak Trump, Vance thinks like the Trump voter. For the vice-president, the story is of a different nature. He did not fight Trump before joining him. It evolved in its orbit, in concentric circles, until it embodied a form of achievement. One bears the scar of conversion while the other has none; which, with Trump, is not necessarily an advantage.
The vice president and secretary of state officially work “in perfect coordination”. Their chiefs of staff have been friends for a long time. The two ex-senators display their complicity. Vance is busy on the national field. Rubio, head of diplomacy but also national security advisor, has a busier schedule. Suffice to say that the first has more time to imagine preparing a campaign than the second.
The midterms test
On online betting sites, the race between the two putative candidates is tightening: in December, Rubio was credited with only a 6% chance of winning the 2028 presidential election. In mid-March, the Kalshi platform placed him at 18%, only one point behind Vance, at 19%. In the polls, however, the gap remains massive. The vice-president would remain more than 30 points ahead of his potential competitors.
Trump maintains ambiguity. On boardAir Force Oneasked about possible support, he answers without choosing: “JD is fantastic, Marco is fantastic. If they formed a ticket together, it would be unbeatable. » Trump likes dueling and thinks it strengthens everyone, including himself. The two men act with restraint. Rubio says he wouldn’t run if Vance enters the race. Vance, for his part, praises the collective: “Marco is doing a great job. I’m trying to make my own. The president is doing an excellent job. »
In Washington, some already fear that a duel between Vance and Rubio will weaken the Republicans in 2028
Behind this polite rivalry, an ideological battle has taken place. A struggle between an America focused on itself, suspicious of external commitments, and a power which continues to structure the world order, even in renewed forms. Vance speaks to the base, Rubio speaks to the world. In Washington dinners as in meetings of swing statesthe networks are already being structured. There are less than two years until the primaries open. The November midterms will serve as a test.
In Washington, some already fear that a duel between Vance and Rubio will weaken the Republicans in 2028. But for now, the main thing is being played out elsewhere. In December, in the Oval Office, Trump interrupted a meeting to tell Vance and Rubio that they had “shit shoes”. He takes out a catalog, takes the sizes. Vance: 46. Rubio: 44.5. A few weeks later, black Florsheims arrived. In photos released last week, the man in the Beatles boots floats in the president’s shoes. Perhaps, already, an image of the sequel.
