JD Vance can only become a serious contender for the White House if he figures out how to get out from under Donald Trump without alienating MAGA in the process. He does not need to denounce Trump or challenge him head-on. He just needs to still be standing when Trump inevitably turns on him.
If Vance were to break with Trump before going toe-to-toe with Gavin Newsom in the 2028 presidential race, it could be the one thing that makes him interesting enough to win over moderates. If he could convincingly argue that he played along to get close to power, fully aware of who Trump was, some of us might even be willing to accept that explanation.
That is the only move available to him. It is also the only move that makes him remotely appealing to anyone outside of MAGA. Especially if it is framed as disappointment rather than rebellion. As if he respected Trump, believed in him, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and only later realized what the rest of the country has known for years.
Add a long interview. A carefully worded apology. A moment of visible discomfort when asked about the past. Maybe a sit down with Leslie Stahl to discuss mistakes and lessons learned, the same kind of rehabilitation tour Marjorie Taylor Greene now appears to be on. If the turn is going to happen, it would have to be sold all the way.
When that pivot is compared to the alternative, the contrast is glaring.
Gavin Newsom is polished, predictable and utterly uninspiring. He radiates the confidence of someone who has never had to risk anything. Everything about him feels rehearsed, focus-grouped, and as stale as a high-end used car salesman. He does not project strength, but he does project inevitability. And inevitability is poison in a country that no longer believes anything is real.
The JD Vance who carefully and opportunistically breaks with Trump would at least be doing something new. He would be acknowledging what millions of Americans already know but are only now willing to say out loud. Trump is not a movement. He is a moment, and that moment is burning out in real time.
That is what makes this so uncomfortable for Trump. He does not groom successors. He does not pass the torch. He consumes anyone who looks like a future without him. The second JD Vance is spoken of as a serious 2028 contender, Trump will hear abandonment whether Vance intends it or not.
Then there is Erika Kirk’s endorsement of Vance at a recent TPUSA event, which Trump is almost certainly reading as provocation. He sees himself as the kingmaker. Any suggestion that someone else is positioning a successor can only be interpreted as disloyalty. If Vance allowed that message to come from Kirk, it may have been a quiet test, measuring how much distance he can create before Trump notices the widening gap.
Conservatives are finally starting to wake up from the Trump delirium. They are seeing patterns instead of excuses. They are noticing how every promise collapses into self-interest. They are watching the same chaos play out with different villains and the same protagonist. Hindsight is doing more work than any argument ever could.
That is why this moment matters. Not because JD Vance is some great hope or secret hero, but because his next move will reveal whether the conservative movement can move past Trump without pretending the last decade never happened. Whether it can admit it was wrong without replacing one cult of personality with another.
Trump’s age and the simple reality that neither the Constitution nor his health will allow a third term mean the clock is already running. If JD Vance intends to inherit anything other than the fallout, he has to create space now before Trump anoints a different heir and leaves him stranded.
If Vance makes the turn clean enough and early enough, people will listen. Not because they are fooled, but because there remains a faint hope that someone inside the conservative movement still understands the difference between right and wrong.
If he remains frozen in place, waiting for permission that will never come, he will meet the same fate as every would be successor before him, swallowed by a man who cannot tolerate the idea that the world continues without him.
Don’t be surprised if JD brings on MTG as his running-mate.
Jesse Edwards is director of Newsweek Radio & Podcasting, and the host of Newsweek Radio.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.