JD Vance carries the America First banner toward 2028, and the old Fox News guard still can’t stand the sight of it.
Their own viewers keep telling pollsters something very different.
And Brit Hume just floated one theory about Donald Trump that should sound awfully familiar.
Two Fox Veterans Decided the Base Doesn’t Know Its Own Mind
Brian Kilmeade kicked off the 2028 talk on his radio program, The Brian Kilmeade Show, by asking Hume whether Republicans would field a double-digit primary crowd once President Trump leaves office.
Hume allowed that they might. He named Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vance as the two men everybody talks about, then admitted he had a “suspicion” about the Vice President.
The suspicion turned out to be Trump himself.
“And if you’re as attached to the hip to Trump as indeed Vance is, it’s a good question of if that’s a liability or a benefit,” Hume said. “I think it might end being a liability.”
Kilmeade pushed further. He said Trump’s agenda would need to be locked into law “so we don’t get whiplash if a Democrat does win,” then delivered the line that lit up conservative social media. Kilmeade said he doesn’t think Vance is “popular as he thinks he is with Republicans.”
Funny thing is, Vance hasn’t been bragging. He recently told Mark Halperin he isn’t even sure Trump will endorse him, while calling the President’s backing “the most powerful” in politics. “Obviously, the voters are gonna decide,” Vance said.
So what are the voters saying?
Republican Voters Keep Handing In a Different Scorecard
Kilmeade didn’t cite a single poll for his claim. Republicans have plenty.
A Civiqs tracking survey released at the end of September found 85 percent of Republicans view Vance favorably. Only 7 percent see him unfavorably. Most politicians in Washington would hock the family silver for a split like that inside their own party.
The primary polling points the same direction. A New York Times/Siena survey of likely Republican primary voters, taken October 12 through 19, put Vance at 33 percent and Rubio at 23. And a Noble Predictive Insights poll for The Center Square had Vance at 44 percent in a 14-name field, a full 26 points clear of Rubio. Among Republicans 65 and older, Vance pulled 45 percent.
A Deseret News/Hinckley Institute survey found 51 percent naming Vance as the nominee they’d most like to see, against 31 percent for Rubio. A Focaldata poll for the Financial Times had it 38 to 24.
But the most telling number in that Times/Siena poll had nothing to do with Vance. Only about a third of Republicans said they want the party to move away from Trump.
Sit with that for a second, because it knocks the legs out from under Hume’s whole premise. Roughly two out of three Republicans don’t want to drift away from the President, and nobody in the party stands closer to Trump than his Vice President.
Democrats Already Road-Tested the “Liability” Theory
Hume’s idea isn’t new. Democrats tried it in 2000, and it cost them the White House.
Al Gore spent eight years as Bill Clinton’s Vice President during a booming economy. His team studied the polling, decided the boss carried too much baggage, and kept Clinton off the trail. A Roper Center review of that race found 40 percent of voters said Clinton campaigning for Gore would make them less likely to back him, against just 17 percent who said more likely.
On paper, that looked like a liability. Gore treated it like one.
“This is a campaign that I am running on my own,” Gore said in October 2000. By late that month, the two men had shown up together in public only twice since the convention, according to CNN.
Gore won the popular vote and lost Florida, and the Presidency, by 537 votes.
Emory University political psychologist Drew Westen later put it bluntly. “The failure to make use of Bill Clinton was arguably the mistake that cost Al Gore the 2000 election,” Westen said.
And Gore at least had a scandal-scarred boss to run from. Vance would be running from the man most Republican voters still want leading their party.
Fox’s Forecasters Keep Leaning the Same Direction
Hume isn’t a Never-Trumper, and he’s covered Washington for half a century. But his Trump forecasts have a habit of curdling. In 2021, he told Guy Benson’s radio show the GOP looked like it “can’t win with him and can’t win without him.” Trump went on to win 312 electoral votes three years later.
Kilmeade’s record runs along a different track. He brushed off one Trump Iran deal as “too vague for me to even comment on it.” He wanted Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff pulled off the Iran talks and told Trump that Rubio “should take the lead.” Back in April, he warned, “We can’t leave this conflict with the uranium in the ground and the strait in Iran’s hands.”
Hume, for his part, told Trump in March that “I don’t think it’s time to get out” of the fight with Iran.
Vance has spent his time in office as the administration’s loudest voice for restraint and against another forever war. So when two Fox veterans who lean toward finishing the job in Iran start doubting the restraint guy’s popularity, viewers can connect those dots without a map.
Maybe it’s coincidence. Plenty of MAGA voters like Rubio too, and a recent Daily Mail/YouGov poll found 45 percent of self-described MAGA voters want him as Vance’s running mate. Liking Rubio and doubting Vance aren’t the same thing.
But the pattern at Fox goes back further than one radio segment. Rupert Murdoch reportedly lobbied Trump against putting Vance on the 2024 ticket in the first place, and the network has treated the Vice President’s foreign policy like a problem to be managed ever since.
Why the Establishment Wants Vance Running From Trump
Here’s the part the cable chatter skips. Telling Vance to put daylight between himself and Trump is advice built to separate him from his own voters.
The pre-Trump Republican Party gave the country amnesty pushes, trade deals that shipped factory jobs overseas, and wars that never seemed to end. Vance opposes all three. The donor class that misses that party can’t beat him on those issues inside a Republican primary, so the next best play is persuading him to leave behind the coalition that made him the front-runner.
Hume also noted that Democrats will be “running on opposition to Trump,” who he says is “about to be gone.” Democrats ran against Trump in 2016 and 2024 too. Neither campaign ended the way they hoped.
Expect a lot more “he’s not as popular as he thinks” segments between now and the first primary. Expect even more if November goes badly, when the same voices will pin every Republican loss on the President and tell his Vice President to walk away.
The base will have something to say about that. It always does.
Ahead of the 2024 primaries, Brit Hume told Fox viewers that “the case can be made that he’s a loser.” Donald Trump went on to sweep all seven swing states.
Sources: Mediaite, “Brian Kilmeade, Brit Hume Dump Cold Water on JD Vance’s 2028 Odds: Not as ‘Popular as He Thinks He Is!’”; Civiqs, JD Vance favorability tracking; Denver Gazette, “Vance leads Rubio by double digits in early 2028 Republican poll”; The Hill, “Vance, Harris top early 2028 White House race polling”; The Center Square, “Poll: Vance widens lead in 2028 Republican presidential primary field”; Deseret News, “Who should run for president in 2028? Voters aren’t sure”; Conservative Brief, Focaldata/Financial Times polling; Yahoo News, Daily Mail/YouGov running mate poll; CNN Crossfire transcript, October 23, 2000; Roper Center, 2000 election review; Emory University, “Kerry Should Keep Clinton Close on Campaign Trail”; Fox News Radio, Guy Benson Show interview with Brit Hume; Yahoo News, “Brit Hume Gives Fox News Viewers Damning Reality Check On ‘Loser’ Trump”; Mediaite, Kilmeade on Trump’s Iran deal; The Daily Beast, Kilmeade on Kushner and Witkoff; Media Matters, Kilmeade on Iran ceasefire talks; Mediaite, Brit Hume Iran remarks.