(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles has been “diagnosed with early stage breast cancer” and has decided to start treatment immediately.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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Michael B. Jordan won best actor at the Academy Awards Sunday for his dual role in Sinners, becoming the sixth Black actor to take home the award.
Speaking backstage, he reflected on the honor and the balance between being ambitious and trusting the path meant for you.
“There is a selfishness in understanding that in your craft, in your industry, this is a pinnacle,” he said. “This is what our industry standard is, it’s what we put value on in a big way. That competitiveness, you do want that.”
At the same time, he said success comes down to timing.
“What’s for you is for you,” he continued. “And you can’t take anybody’s blessings away…So I’m just like walking my path, man, and just trying to be locked in.”
He encouraged actors and artists “to keep that in mind” during their journeys, to remain honest and continue dreaming big.
In Sinners, Jordan played twin brothers Smoke and Stack. To prepare, he imagined the history they shared after spending their whole lives together.
“Just imagine you being in a partnership for like 30-something years. How many times they would argue? How many times they would keep score on who’s right and who’s wrong?” he said, noting he built those layers so it could feel like they had a real history.
Director Ryan Coogler said he always believed Jordan was perfect for the role.
“I knew I had to call Mike,” he said backstage. “He ended up calling me before I got to him and asking me if I would be interested in something he was working on independently. And I told him it wasn’t the right time.”
He said Jordan got upset, forcing him to tell him about Sinners earlier than he intended. “Thankfully he said yes,” Coogler said.
Sinners also won the Oscar for best original screenplay.
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Rod Stewart is once again headed back to Las Vegas.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has announced a new set of dates for his Las Vegas residency, The Encore Shows, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
The new dates consist of six shows running from Aug. 18-29.
A Citi presale for tickets begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. local time, followed by a fan club presale on Wednesday at 10 a.m. local time. Presales for Caesars Entertainment’s loyalty program, Live Nation and Ticketmaster begin Thursday at 10 a.m. local time.
Tickets then go on sale to the general public starting Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
Stewart launched The Encore Shows in 2025. It followed his successful previous Caesars Palace residency, Rod Stewart: The Hits, which launched in 2011 and ran for over 13 years.
In addition to Las Vegas, Stewart has several U.S. shows scheduled in 2026. His next concert is happening April 15 in Knoxville, Tennessee. A complete list of dates can be found at RodStewart.com.
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The Strokes are headlining the 2026 Just Like Heaven festival, taking place August 22 in Pasadena, California.
The bill also includes LCD Soundsystem, Dayglow, The Rapture, Feist and Matt and Kim.
“We are looking forward to getting back to Pasadena to play at the Just Like Heaven Festival later this summer,” says Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture in a statement.
Tickets go on sale Friday at 11 a.m. PT. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit JustLikeHeavenFest.com.
You can also catch The Strokes at upcoming festivals including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Outside Lands and Shaky Knees.
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Queen’s Brian May made a surprise appearance during pop star Benson Boone’s set at the 2025 Coachella Festival in Indio, California, and he did again at Boone’s Sunday concert in Birmingham, England.
May came out during Boone’s encore, joining him on guitar for Queen classics “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” as well as Boone’s hit track “Beautiful Things.”
“While (sic) lotta fun with Benson Boone last night,” May wrote on Instagram. “His show is sensational – I just provided a little icing on the cake.”
May added, “Gotta say pure fun and adrenaline are just one reason I wanna spend my weekend in Birmingham.” He then went on to explain several other reasons, including it being a “big challenge to step into this massive production and deliver,” noting he likes to be challenged “even though it makes me nervous.”
He wrote that Boone’s band is incredible and that the singer “is not only an awesome performer but one of the most genuine, thoughtful and generous people I’ve ever met.” Plus, May explained that his appearance “was a chance for my grandchildren to share a moment and experience what my life has been like.”
May praised Boone for returning to the U.K. for just one show to fulfill a promise to fans after he had to cancel a show three months prior due to vocal issues.
He also said he was thrilled by the reaction of the crowd.
“To be greeted with that ROAR from a Birmingham audience was beyond priceless – I felt that old love – Queen had such great times in Birmingham,” he wrote. “Great days ! I feel lucky.”
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Guns N’ Roses are hopping off the “Nightrain” and picking up a different mode of transportation for an upcoming show.
The “Welcome to the Jungle” rockers will be playing the official Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix kickoff concert, taking place April 30 at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida.
Members of GN’R’s Nightrain fan club will have access to a presale beginning Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. ET.
For all ticket info, visit GunsNRoses.com.
The F1 Miami Grand Prix takes place May 1-3.
GN’R will play a previously announced show at the Hard Rock Live on May 5 before headlining the Welcome to Rockville festival on May 7 in Daytona Beach. They’ll launch a full U.S. tour in July.
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On this Day, March 16, 1954…
Nancy Wilson, one half of the rock duo Heart, was born in San Francisco, California.
Nancy and her older sister Ann, along with Roger Fisher and Steve Fossen, formed Heart in 1973. They were later joined by Michael Derosier and Howard Leese, and released their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, in 1975, which featured future Heart classics “Crazy on You” and “Magic Man.”
The group went on to sell over 35 million records and landed two #1 singles: “These Dreams” and “Alone,” along with top-40 singles “Barracuda,” “What About Love,” “Never,” “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” and more.
The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
Nancy and sister Ann also formed the acoustic group Lovemongers, which released the EP Battle of Evermore in 1992 and the full-length album Whirlygig in 1997. Nancy also released several solo albums; the most recent, You and Me, came out in 2021.
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(NEW YORK) — It’s been 100 years since the 1st modern rocket launched. Humans are heading back to the moon
The experiment lasted only two and a half seconds, but it ignited a century of space exploration that sent humans to low Earth orbit and eventually to the moon.
On March 16, 1926, Robert H. Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket on a snowy farm in Massachusetts. Historians say that Goddard’s 10-foot rocket would pave the way for the modern machines that do everything from putting satellites in orbit to sending humans to the International Space Station and beyond.
“His unlocking of that ability to use liquid fuel really just sets the stage for any other country around the world that is launching rockets,” Ed Stewart, a curator at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, told ABC News. “It all comes back down to March 16 in 1926 because he was the one that proved that it could be done and then actually did it.”
The rocket was the first of its kind, powered by liquid propellant rather than gunpowder or other solid fuels used by most rockets at the time, according to NASA. The rocket flew for less than three seconds and reached an altitude of about 41 feet.
While scientists overseas had already been experimenting with rocketry in places like Russia and Germany, according to historical documents, it was Goddard’s 1919 paper, “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” that made the physicist’s discovery famous worldwide, explained Stewart.
“It caught the attention of people all around the world, even people that were doing some experimentation with rockets and liquid fuels and things like that in other parts of the world,” Stewart said.
The paper suggested that rockets could one day travel to the moon and caught the attention of the Smithsonian Institution, which invested money in rocket research.
“I think the breakthrough was, first of all, that Goddard had this dream of getting a rocket ship off the surface of the Earth,” said Charles “Chuck” Agosta, a physics professor at Goddard’s alma mater, Clark University. “And then, of course, the dream was to go to Mars.”
Other scientists, like Hermann Oberth of Germany, later built on Goddard’s theory, and that progress eventually contributed to the development of the V-2 rocket, Stewart noted. And eventually, rockets based on Goddard’s pioneering work led to sending astronauts into space and to the moon.
Goddard earned his master’s and doctorate in physics at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, before returning to teach at the school in 1914. He eventually served as director of the physics department for two decades.
Today, faculty at Clark say his legacy still looms large on campus.
Goddard once used a bicycle wheel to show funding agencies how gyroscopes could help steer rockets in space. Today, Agosta uses that same wheel to teach his students about angular momentum.
Despite his legacy, Goddard’s breakthrough didn’t immediately capture the public’s imagination. Stewart says that when the first liquid-fueled rocket launched, space travel was still widely viewed as science fiction by many.
“I do think that at the time it was still so far-fetched that even once he proved that the basic version of the technology would work, people still were thinking of it more as a novelty,” Stewart said.
Much of what we know about those early experiments comes from Goddard’s wife, Esther Christine Kisk Goddard, a photographer from Worcester, Mass. She documented many of the tests, leaving behind footage that offers a window into the creation of the world’s first modern rockets.
According to NASA, Goddard created and launched more than 35 rockets throughout his lifetime. It was because of his pioneering work in modern rocketry that, in May 1959, NASA renamed its first spaceflight complex to the “Goddard Space Flight Center.”
The center is home to missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch as early as fall 2026.
The global return to the moon and beyond
During his initial launch tests, Goddard fueled his rocket with gasoline and liquid oxygen, according to the Roswell Museum in New Mexico, where the physicist spent part of his career. Today’s modern rockets no longer use gasoline, opting for other fuels such as liquid hydrogen, liquid methane and refined kerosene along with liquid oxygen, which acts as an oxidizer.
On the 100th anniversary of Goddard’s discovery, the United States is on the cusp of sending the first astronauts to the moon since 1972 as part of the Artemis II mission. The 10-day trip will send four astronauts around the far side of the moon in NASA’s Orion spacecraft, launched into orbit by the most powerful rocket ever to send people into space. A rocket that may never have come to fruition had Goddard not experimented on that faithful day in 1926.
What could the next 100 years of rocket technology bring?
“I’m pretty confident that in a hundred years, we’re going to be all over space,” Agosta said.
Considering the thousands of airplanes in our own skies every day, he says it’s “inevitable” and that we’ll “at least be in the planets close to us” by the next century.
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(NEW YORK) — Several developments came out of Washington, D.C., regarding the war with Iran over the weekend as strikes continue across the Middle East and economic impacts are beginning to be felt domestically.
President Donald Trump and administration officials continued to comment on the timeline of the war, the possibility of a deal with Iran, securing the Strait of Hormuz and the release of oil reserves.
The administration has maintained that the U.S. is decimating Iranian forces and degrading their capabilities, but Iran continues to strike.
On Saturday, Trump said on social media, “We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability,” and said the U.S. “will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE.”
Still, the administration has yet to comment on the deployment of Marines to the region, which was announced on Friday, and what their mission could entail.
Trump also faced backlash over the weekend after an affiliated political action committee sent a fundraising email, featuring a photo from the dignified transfer of the first six U.S. service members killed in the Iran war, while offering contributors access to “private national security briefings.”
ABC News has compiled a list of some of the latest developments as the war stretches into its third week.
Timeline
Questions continue to swirl about how long Trump wants the United States to be engaged in this war.
He spent the bulk of last week assuring Americans it would be over soon, hoping to ease market concerns, saying Iran is beaten. But on his way out of Washington Friday night, he refused to comment on how long it would continue. “As long as necessary,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, “I think that this conflict will certainly come to an end in the next few weeks. Could be sooner than that, but the conflict will come to the end in the next few weeks.”
In an interview with NBC, Wright also acknowledged, “Americans are feeling it [economic pain] right now and will feel it for a few more weeks.” But, he said, in the end, we will have removed the greatest threat to global energy supplies.
Securing the Strait
Officials, including Wright, also struggled over the weekend to explain the plans they had executed in anticipation that Iran would shut down the vital oil shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz.
On Saturday, Trump called on other countries that depend on that commerce to help secure the strait, naming “China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others.” He also suggested he’s received commitments from some of them, but from whom remains unknown. Democrats, critical of Trump, said last week that this is something that should have been coordinated at the outset.
Later Saturday, President Trump told NBC that he’d secured cooperation. “They’ve not only committed, but they think it’s a great idea,” but he didn’t say which country or countries he was referring to.
And, in that same interview, he said, “We believe we’ll be joined by other countries,” drawing into question whether he actually secured commitments.
ABC News has asked the White House to clarify, and they have not responded.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said of the strait on Friday, “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it.”
But, so far, there have been no escorts, and requests from shipping companies have reportedly been denied.
Pressed on whether Trump has actual commitments from others to help, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said during an interview with CNN, “I’ll leave those conversations to him,” referring to the president.
Wright told ABC News that more work needs to be done before the strait can open and escorts can occur. “Right now, our focus is destroying their military capabilities, including those that are used specifically to threaten the straits. But we need to finish those tasks first, and you will see the straits open again in the not-too-distant future.”
He also did not specify which countries would help.
Trump spoke with the leaders of the U.K. and Canada on Sunday, but there was no mention of any commitment from the foreign leaders.
Trump, meanwhile, has been warning Iran that further disruptions in the strait could result in devastating strikes on the country’s oil infrastructure. He said he’s so far held back during those strikes on Kharg Island, but on Friday warned he would “reconsider” if Iran interfered with the Strait of Hormuz.
On Saturday, he told NBC, “We may hit it a few more times just for fun.”
A deal?
Many experts in Washington believe ultimately, there needs to be another nuclear deal in order for this war to end.
Trump said over the weekend he’s not ready “because the terms aren’t good enough yet.”
“Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet,” Trump reportedly told NBC.
And in a post to his social media platform, he said Iran “wants a deal,” but not one he would accept.
He also raised questions about whether the new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is alive or not. On Friday, the State Department announced a $10 million reward for information on key Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders, including Khamenei.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CBS on Sunday, “We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us, and that was for the second time.”
But, in what some interpret as a more positive diplomatic development, Aragachi said Iran has not yet attempted to retrieve its 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from “underneath the rubble” of those nuclear sites bombed by the U.S. last June.
If, he said, that material is to be recovered, it would be done under the “supervision of the agency,” a reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Earlier Saturday, Reuters reported that Trump had rejected efforts from Middle East allies to begin diplomatic ceasefire negotiations. The White House had not responded to ABC’s requests for comment about the report.
“Nothing is on the table right now. Everything depends on the future,” Araghchi said.
Marines deployed
On Friday, Trump ordered 2,200 Marines aboard three U.S. Navy amphibious ships to the Middle East, two officials confirmed to ABC News.
Trump has yet to comment on this decision, and why it’s necessary if the war, in his words, is “won.”
The Marines are part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit, which means that they are capable of conducting land, amphibious and aviation missions.
It also means there are more than just 2,220 Marines headed there. There are between 2,000 and 2,500 Sailors also on board those ships, providing support.
In all, approximately 5,000 Marines and Sailors are headed to the region.
The Pentagon has not acknowledged the deployment and has not offered any guidance on its mission.
Nevertheless, they are already underway and will take a minimum of 10 days to get there.
Backlash to campaign using photo of war dead
Trump drew backlash from his critics over the weekend after it was confirmed an affiliated political action committee sent a new fundraising email featuring an official White House photo from the dignified transfer of the first six U.S. service members killed in the Iran war, while also offering contributors access to “private national security briefings.”
In the photo, Trump can be seen saluting a flag-draped transfer case containing the remains of one of the six fallen soldiers.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CNN, “If the president is willing to raise campaign funds over the bodies of America’s war dead, he is unfit to be the commander in chief.”
The White House and Never Surrender Inc. have not responded to ABC News’ requests for comment.
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, Trump said he “didn’t see” the email. “I didn’t see it. I mean, somebody puts it up. We have a lot of people working for us, but there’s nobody that’s better to the military than me,” Trump said.
The Pentagon identified the six service members killed when a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday.
Three of the Air Force airmen were assigned to the 6th Air Refueling Wing, MacDill Air Force Base in Florida: Maj. John A. Klinner, 33, of Auburn, Alabama; Capt. Ariana G. Savino, 31, of Covington, Washington; and Tech. Sgt. Ashley B. Pruitt, 34, of Bardstown, Kentucky
The other three airmen were assigned to the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio: Capt. Seth R. Koval, 38, of Mooresville, Indiana; Capt. Curtis J. Angst, 30, of Wilmington, Ohio; and Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, 28, of Columbus, Ohio
The crash, which involved another KC-135 tanker, is still under investigation.
Oil reserves
Oil reserves from emergency stockpiles will start flowing immediately to Asia but won’t be available to the U.S. and Europe until the end of March, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a new press release Sunday.
Importantly, the IEA did not specify exactly how much oil would start flowing per day — a metric oil analysts are watching to understand what the immediate impact might be on prices. Oil prices have so far not been tamed by the announcement that countries, including the U.S., are tapping their strategic reserves.
The IEA announced the biggest-ever release of oil from reserves — 400 million barrels — from its 32 member countries last week. That includes 172 million barrels from the U.S.
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(WASHINGTON) — A year ago, the stage seemed set for Vice President JD Vance to succeed President Donald Trump as the MAGA heir apparent in 2028.
Vance, just 40 years old at the time of the 2024 election, came into office with wave of support from Republicans and the backing of the president’s family.
And while the vice president remains well-positioned ahead of a likely 2028 campaign, questions are quietly emerging over Vance’s inevitability, especially as Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s profile and responsibilities have grown throughout the first year of Trump’s second term, most recently around the war with Iran.
The long-term political implications of the war remain to be seen, but Rubio’s rise has caught the eye of not only some of Trump’s closest allies, but the president himself, who in private has been noting how “popular” and “loved” Rubio has become as part of his team, multiple sources told ABC News.
People around the president have noted the lavish praise Trump heaps on Rubio, privately but also in public, often starting standing ovations for him and declaring that Rubio will go down as “the greatest secretary of state in history.”
The president, however, has opted thus far not to formally endorse either Vance or Rubio as his preferred successor, instead saying he would like to see them run together on a joint ticket, without specifying who should be at the top.
Privately, the president has repeatedly tossed the question to allies and associates about who they would like to see at the top of the ticket, asking, “Marco or JD?,” as AXIOS first reported, including recently to a group of donors at his Mar-a-Lago resort in late February, sources said.
‘Draft Rubio’ movement rises
Amid Rubio’s rise, a group of Republican donors who support the secretary of state has also quietly begun discussing ways to further boost Rubio’s political future ahead of 2028, multiple sources told ABC News.
They described an emerging, behind-the-scenes effort to elevate him within the party and stand up a potential “draft Rubio” effort following the midterms. The discussions, according to those sources, are being driven by donors and surrogates who support Rubio, not the secretary of state himself, reflecting what some in Trump-aligned circles see as a growing enthusiasm for Rubio’s rising profile inside the administration.
However, in recent presidential elections, donor support has not always directly translated to political success.
“Donors don’t pick the nominee — the base picks,” a senior Republican operative told ABC News. “Donors tried to abandon President Trump and tried to pick [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis, and we all saw how that went.”
Asked about political donors being drawn to Rubio, White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement to ABC News that Trump has assembled a strong team to work under him and that nothing will deter the administration in its work.
“The President has assembled an all-star team that has achieved unprecedented success in just over one year. No amount of crazed media speculation about Vice President Vance and Secretary Rubio will deter this Administration’s mission of fighting for the American people,” Cheung said.
The vice president’s office declined to comment.
Over the course of the administration’s first year, Rubio has emerged as a leading voice of the Trump administration, taking on numerous senior roles including acting national security adviser and acting director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to the point where it has become a running joke around Washington about what position Rubio will take on next.
The State Department did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
By Trump’s side for Iran strikes
Rubio’s star has risen particularly since the Trump administration’s recent strikes on Iran, with the secretary emerging as a leading face communicating the operation alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. When President Trump gave his top military commanders the green light to launch a sweeping attack on Iran, Rubio wasn’t in Washington — he was already on his way to a makeshift situation room in Mar-a-Lago, where he would monitor the first hours of Operation Epic Fury by the president’s side.
Vance was in the Situation Room monitoring the strikes with Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. They were dialed into a conference line with President Trump and the rest of the national security team at Mar-a-Lago.
A spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the vice president “remained in Washington to maintain operational secrecy and in keeping with the administration’s security protocol to limit the President and Vice President co-locating away from the White House.”
Through the early days of the conflict, Rubio has continued to play a highly visible supporting role, remaining by the president’s side at Mar-a-Lago during those early days — a position that has fueled speculation that his stock was on the rise.
But Rubio’s elevated profile amid the Iran strikes could cut both ways. While the secretary of state has taken more of a central role, if he did have future political ambitions, that could also tie him closer to the military operation. Early polling suggests the war is unpopular with most Americans, as just 29% approve of the strikes, while 43% disapprove and 26% remain unsure, according to an Ipsos poll.
The same Ipsos poll also shows that a majority of Americans believe that Trump has not explained the goals of the war, with 64% say Trump has not clearly explained the war’s objective.
Neither Vance nor Rubio has officially declared plans to run for president, and when asked by Vanity Fair last year, Rubio said he would support the vice president. “If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio said.
Vance keeping lower profile
Meanwhile, Vance, a Marine Corps veteran of the war in Iraq, had maintained a relatively low profile following the start of the war in Iran but is now ramping back up his official and political events, including speaking this afternoon in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where he spoke briefly about the Iran war in his remarks to voters.
Vance also has not been as active on his social media platforms, such as X, as he has been in the past.
In a statement to ABC News about Vance’s public communications during the early days of the strikes, a senior White House official said “the national security team was deliberate on letting the President’s statements and addresses to the nation stand as the operation unfolded.”
Vance was also slated to appear at a town hall with CBS News that was set to air on Saturday, but following the Iran strikes, the scheduled broadcast has been postponed, citing the war in Iran.
Vance is, however, still maintaining a robust fundraising schedule as finance chair of the Republican National Committee, with fundraisers scheduled in Dallas and Austin later this month, according to fundraiser flyers obtained by ABC News.
During a press conference on Monday, Trump said that he and Vance were “philosophically a little bit different” when it came to the U.S. war with Iran after ABC News previously reported that Vance internally expressed reservations about the strikes late last month. Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward, Vance shifted to work on supporting the military operation.
“I don’t think so. No, no, we get along very well on this. He was, I would say philosophically a little bit different than me. I think he was, maybe less enthusiastic about going, but he was quite enthusiastic. But, I felt it was something we had to do. I didn’t feel we had a choice. If we didn’t do it, they would have done it to us,” Trump said Monday evening in Florida.
Once it became clear that the decision had been made to move forward, Vance shifted to work on supporting the military operation.
Hegseth was asked during Friday’s Pentagon press briefing about the role Vance played in the military operation and reports that he differed from Trump on the Iran strikes. Hegseth praised the team Trump has pulled together and said that the team “provides options to the President and the Vice President every single day, and is a key voice in that.”
Vance said in an interview with Fox News on March 2 that he did not believe Trump would get the U.S. into a “multi-year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective.”
The vice president’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, pushed back against reports of Vance’s view on the war in Iran.
“The Vice President has been the focus of constant leaks left and right by people trying to project their views onto him,” Van Kirk said. “And as a result, there have been countless inconsistent accounts of the Vice President’s views published, which shows the mainstream media has no idea what they’re talking about. The Vice President, a proud member of the President’s national security team, keeps his counsel to the President private.”
The ‘Tucker dilemma’ for Vance
Some close administration advisers around the president have expressed frustration over Vance’s close ties to voices who have emerged as critics speaking out against Iran, including popular commentator Tucker Carlson, sources said, and have grown close to Rubio, viewing him as a leading figure across multiple fronts.
Laura Loomer, the influential far-right activist who has the president’s ear, has emerged as one of Vance’s staunchest critics from within the MAGA base — routinely targeting the vice president over his connections to critical voices like Carlson, who along with others lobbied Trump to select him as vice president during the 2024 campaign.
Loomer, who spoke to the president recently about the war in Iran, has called on Vance to condemn Carlson following his criticism of Iran strikes and has been boosting the idea that Rubio’s profile is on the rise. “RUBIO RISING 🇺🇸 Get ready for 2028!,” Loomer posted on social media earlier in March.
“Months ago, I called it the ‘Tucker dilemma,’” Loomer told ABC News when reached for comment. “I said that JD Vance has a Tucker problem. And I do believe that one of the reasons why a lot of the GOP donors, as well as a lot of the GOP base, is souring on JD is that he has not explicitly condemned Tucker.”
“If he doesn’t disavow him, Marco’s going to be the nominee,” Loomer said.
Following the initial strikes on Iran, Carlson told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that the operation was “absolutely disgusting and evil,” comments that President Trump later responded to by saying the former Fox News anchor had “lost his way” and that he “knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.
Headwinds for Rubio
While some GOP donors aligned with Rubio have begun quietly discussing a potential 2028 bid, if the the secretary of state were to run he would face real formidable obstacles running against the vice president, who has spent the past several years working to consolidate support within Trump’s Republican party.
Vance has secured the backing of some of the most influential figures in the Republican party, perhaps none more important that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and Carlson, both of whom played pivotal roles in elevating him to the vice presidency during the 2024 campaign.
But Vance also has deep ties to some of the biggest GOP donors from the tech world, including billionaires Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. And Vance has already been endorsed by the late Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, one of the most powerful grassroots organizations on the right, which has already begun standing up staff and operations in the primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.
As RNC finance chair, Vance has started courting major donors across the country, while also maintaining close ties to the Rockbridge Network, a donor and policy organization he helped found before entering politics that connects him to a broad group of wealthy conservative backers and operatives.
Rubio’s last presidential run in 2016 began with high expectations, including the backing of major GOP donors and party strategists, but it ultimately faltered. He finished third in the Iowa caucuses behind Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump before placing fifth in the New Hampshire primary and ultimately losing his home state of Florida to Trump, after which he suspended his campaign.
At the time, ABC News’ analysis of the primary noted that Rubio was part of the establishment Republican lane that collapsed as Trump “took over the Republican Party by sheer force of personality,” defeating a field that included establishment darlings like at the time rising figures such as Rubio.
Today, voters are negative about both men, according to an NBC poll conducted last week. About half of registered voters had a negative opinion of Vance (49%), while 38% were positive: a net negative of 11 points. For Rubio, 41% were negative and 34% were positive, a net negative 7 points. The remainders for each were either neutral, not sure or didn’t know their names.
Behind the scenes, the secretary’s close political allies have mirrored Rubio’s deference—denying that he has his sights set on the White House, while quietly emphasizing that they believe he would make a great president.
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