Combative Bondi grilled over Epstein files, targeting of Trump’s political foes
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi delivers remarks on an arrest connected to the 2012 U.S. Embassy attack in Benghazi, at the Department of Justice on February 6, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Lawmakers grilled a combative Attorney General Pam Bondi as she testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday amid multiple controversies, including her handling of the files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Justice Department’s targeting of President Donald Trump’s political foes.
In a fiery exchange at the beginning of the hearing, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal pushed Bondi to turn around and apologize to a group of Epstein survivors who attended the hearing.
Bondi, who didn’t turn around, told Jayapal she wouldn’t “get in the gutter for her theatrics.”
In her opening statement, Bondi expressed support for the victims.
“I have spent my entire career fighting for victims, and I will continue to do so. I am deeply sorry for what any victim — any victim — has been through, especially as a result of that monster,” Bondi said to the Epstein survivors.
Bondi said several Democrats were engaging in “theatrics” throughout the hearing, and when Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the committee, pushed her to answer questions instead of engaging in heated interactions, Bondi called Raskin a “washed up loser lawyer.”
Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been sharply critical of the Justice Department’s incomplete release of the Epstein files and extensive DOJ redactions after some viewed unredacted files at the agency beginning Monday.
Raskin, said he was outraged by Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files.
“You redacted the names of abusers, enablers, accomplices and co-conspirators, apparently to spare them embarrassment and disgrace, which is the exact opposite of what the law ordered you to do. Even worse, you shockingly failed to redact many of the victims’ names, which is what you were ordered to do by Congress,” he said.
“Some of the victims had come forward publicly, but many had not. Many had kept their torment private, even from family and friends. But you published their names, their identity, their images on thousands of pages for the world to see. So you ignored the law,” he added.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department — in response to concerns raised by victims’ and their lawyers — removed from its website “several thousand” documents and media that may have “inadvertently included victim-identifying information.”
Tensions were high as a group of Epstein survivors were seated behind Bondi. The group spoke out about the federal investigation into the convicted sex offender earlier Wednesday and have been critical of the federal government for not doing enough to prosecute Epstein over the years or look into the people who allegedly enabled him.
Several victims and their families said they feel the federal government has not done enough outreach to them.
“Pam, I have a clear and simple message for you. The way this administration and you specifically have handled survivors has been nothing short of a failure,” Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s most high-profile accuser said prior to the hearing.
Sky Roberts’ wife, Amanda Roberts, said Bondi’s treatment of the Epstein survivors has been disappointing.
“To Ms. Bondi, we are deeply disappointed by the way you and your leadership in this department have treated survivors. And today, while you’re being questioned, we ask you to look in the eyes of every single one of us and remember Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the trauma that she had endured,“ Amanda Roberts said.
Raskin also blasted Bondi in his opening statement, calling her handling of investigations a “vendetta factory.”
“You’ve turned the people’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” Raskin said. “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time.”
In her opening statement, Bondi highlighted the cooperation between Democratic mayors to drive down crime in Memphis and Washington, D.C.
In the same opening statement, Bondi said that the clashes between federal agents have been avoidable and were so due to the “reckless rhetoric” by certain politicians.
Bondi also went after judges who rule against the administration, and called it “judicial activism.”
“We fought through a nonstop flood of bad faith, temporary restraining orders from liberal activist judges across this country. America has never seen this level of coordinated judicial opposition towards a presidential administration. It is not only an unlawful attack on the executive branches authority, but a serious attack on the democratic process,” she said.
She will likely be grilled about her efforts to revive cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York’s Democratic Attorney General Letitia James after indictments against them were tossed.
Bondi is also expected to be questioned about the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — something administration officials have said was a law enforcement operation.
Given that, questions have been raised about why the attorney general was not present to discuss the matter at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago news conference announcing the raid.
The attorney general has testified on Capitol Hill only a handful of times.
In her most recent testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she appeared to use prepared lines of attack against Democratic lawmakers who demanded she answer their tough questions.
Rep. Valerie Foushee speaks to a small crowd before President Joe Biden during a visit to Wolfspeed, a semiconductor manufacturer, as he kicks off his Investing in America Tour, March 28, 2023, in Durham, N.C. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As the first primaries in the 2026 midterm elections kick off on Tuesday, Democrats once again are dealing with divides in their party, including over generational change and immigration enforcement, in contests where progressives are taking on incumbents.
One of these faceoffs is set for Tuesday in North Carolina. Nida Allam, 32, vice chair of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, is mounting a primary challenge from the left to Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee, 69. Allam previously lost to Foushee in the 2022 primary in North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District.
“We have an opportunity to push and champion not just Trump and the right-wing administration, but also our own party; that this seat could be the most powerful tool for progressives and Democrats in the South, but it’s only as powerful as the person sitting in that seat,” Allam told ABC News in an interview.
Allam has the support of progressive stalwart independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who campaigned for her in mid-February and told supporters at a rally, “At a moment when the oligarchs are tightening their grip on our society, we need leaders like Nida, leaders who answer to working families and not the billionaire class.”
Foushee, in a statement to ABC News, pushed back on Allam’s claims that she is not progressive or present enough, pointing to her endorsement by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and to securing millions for the district.
“My opponent’s claim that I have been absent from my role with zero ability to describe what more she would have done in Congress under the Republican majority demonstrates that she is trying to apply for a job that she does not understand,” Foushee wrote.
Similar primary rumbles are set to play out over the coming months, including in Colorado’s June 30 primaries. Melat Kiros, 28, a Ph.D student and barista, is running against longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, who has represented the state’s 1st Congressional District since 1997.
Kiros previously worked for a law firm and wrote an open letter in 2023 criticizing how law firms were responding in 2023 to pro-Palestinian protests. “I was asked to take the letter down. I said no, and then I was fired,” Kiros said. (The firm, Sidley Austin, did not reply to a request for comment from ABC News.)
Kiros says she draws a direct contrast with DeGette on the U.S.-Israel relationship and that DeGette’s opposition to further offensive aid to Israel does not go far enough.
The debate surrounding U.S. support for Israel, or whether Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide, has sometimes been cast as a divide between younger and older Democrats. (Israel strongly disputes the allegations of committing genocide in Gaza and has said it took care to avoid civilian casualties during its military campaign against Hamas.)
Kiros believes the divide is more complicated than a generational one, but said young people “are seeing on our phones a genocide happening in real time … and want to see representatives who are committed to actually holding Israel accountable and ending this genocide.”
DeGette’s campaign did not provide comment or respond to a request for an interview when contacted by ABC News. She told NBC News in December more broadly, “We must defend our democracy against Donald Trump and work to solve our problems with dignity, justice, and a future grounded in compassion, not cruelty.”
Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, says the divide among Democrats over support for Israel — or even how to refer to its actions — reflects a “broader debate within the party about both Israel, but also America’s role in the world and what it should stand for … it’s a moment of flux in that way for the Democratic Party.”
“The moderates are in a tough spot,” he added, as moderates may oppose policies by Israel’s leadership but disagree with the claim that Israel was committing a genocide and feel Israel had the right to defend itself. “It’s a bit harder to message or navigate the complexities of the issue.”
Another flashpoint in some of these primaries is the future of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), especially in the wake of the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis last month.
Jonathan Paz, a 32-year-old former city council member from the Boston suburb of Waltham, is mounting a primary challenge to Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, 62, who currently serves as the House Minority Whip — the second-most powerful Democrat in the House.
Paz told ABC News, “She seems determined to write strongly worded letters. I’m calling to disband ICE and cut all their funding … [people] don’t want that empty rhetoric. They want to dismantle this agency because they want to see the violence stop.”
He added that he feels Clark did not do her job as whip — the whip works to get party members aligned on how to vote — given that 21 House Democrats voted for continuing Department of Homeland Security funding as part of ending a partial government shutdown.
Clark has called for guardrails and restrictions on ICE, and urged voting against the appropriations bill with DHS funding; she also said in early February that she was denied access to an ICE facility in her district while trying to conduct oversight.
“Katherine is doing the work to hold ICE and the Administration accountable and end its reign of terror in our neighborhoods,” Clark’s reelection campaign said in a statement to ABC News.
The progressive challengers more broadly lay bare another ongoing debate within the Democratic Party: whether the party should stand behind incumbents or usher in a new generation of younger and potentially more progressive lawmakers.
“What the voters in this country are fed up with is the corruption of this political system that continues to reward and profit billionaires at the expense of everyone else,” Usamah Andrabi, communications director at the progressive group Justice Democrats, told ABC News.
The group recently unveiled a slate of 12 primary endorsements, including Allam and Kiros.
But others within the Democratic ecosystem have cautioned against reading too much into the progressive versus moderate primary challenges.
David de la Fuente, deputy director for politics and research at the centrist group Third Way, told ABC News he would point to how those challenges are happening often in safely blue districts, not competitive toss-up seats.
He also argued against conflating generational change with an ideological shift to the left.
“Young candidates, whether they’re moderate or progressive, are representing change and a generational shift. That is a tale as old as time,” he said.
Donald Trump delivers remarks during a working breakfast with governors in the State Dining Room at the White House on February 20, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — When President Donald Trump delivers the first State of the Union address of his second term Tuesday night — it will be a chance to make the case for his sweeping policy goals directly to millions of Americans — ahead of November’s midterm elections where control of Congress is at stake.
One year ago, Trump proclaimed “America is back” as he addressed a joint session of Congress shortly after taking office, laying out novel plans to make good on issues he campaigned on, including lowering prices while imposing worldwide tariffs, the mass deportations of immigrants in the country illegally, and a promise to keep America out of foreign wars.
Since then, he has taken unprecedented, often highly controversial, steps to reshape the federal government and achieve those goals, testing the limits of presidential power on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts. But he’s done so at a political cost – with polls showing a growing number of Americans displeased or opposed.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday morning that the president will contend that he and Republicans are the best choice to “continue tackling the affordability crisis” and that he’ll feature a Pennsylvania waitress who benefitted from his “no tax on tips” policy.
Earlier, she posted on X that “In one year, President Trump has turned our country around from the brink of disaster, and he will rightly declare the State of Our Union is strong, prosperous and respected.”
He could also use his speech to shore up support from lawmakers and the American people on two major, immediate issues: the current showdown with Iran that could end up with Trump ordering the U.S. military into war — and his tariff policy — much of which was struck down as illegal last week by the Supreme Court.
At least some of the justices are expected to attend, possibly including the conservatives ones he picked and who joined in that ruling. By tradition, they will be seated just in front of him, and the presence of justices he has railed against, even personally attacked, could bring fireworks to the House chamber.
The economy and tariffs
After months of blaming former President Joe Biden for leaving what he repeatedly called an economic “mess,” Trump has now taken full responsibility for the economy, even declaring last week that he “won affordability.” While he is sure to tout the relative taming of inflation in recent months – down to 2.4% now from 3% when he took office – that hasn’t translated into lower prices across the board for many Americans.
Prices for some key household goods such as eggs and gas are down, but his tariffs and other factors have increased the prices of many household goods such as produce, beef and coffee.
The ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll shows that almost half of Americans, 48%, say the economy has gotten worse since Trump took office — although that number is down slightly from 52%, who said the same in October.
Given that, he faces an uphill battle to persuade Americans they are better off. According to that recent ABC/Post/Ipsos poll, 65% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling inflation and 57% disapprove of how he’s handling the economy overall.
“We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had,” Trump said Monday. “We have the most activity we’ve ever had. I’m making a speech tomorrow night, and you’ll be hearing me say that. I mean it’s — it’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”
As Democrats make the rising cost of health care a major message for their candidates to run on in this fall – after many Americans saw their premiums skyrocket when Affordable Care Act subsidies expired at the start of the year – Trump will likely need to counter that by citing what he says he’s done to make health care more affordable.
He will surely point to his Most Favored Nation policy that lowered the cost of some pharmaceuticals and the TrumpRx platform aimed at making those lower prices for some medications more transparent.
Foreign policy
Trump will also have the chance to make the case for some of the ambitious foreign policy moves he’s made during his first year in office. His reshaping of America’s role in the global order comes as even some Republicans have criticized Trump for focusing too much on foreign policy rather than on domestic issues.
At his orders, the U.S. has amassed a major military force near Iran as negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program between American and Iranian officials are likely to continue on Thursday. Even so, critics say Trump and his administration have not made publicly clear exactly what objectives they are seeking in Iran.
At the same time, he has made clear the possibility of military action — either limited or more prolonged — is not out of the question, even as polls show Americans are hesitant about the U.S. getting involved in another war to make changes in another country.
More than half of Americans, 54%, oppose Trump using the U.S. military to force changes in other countries, while only 20% support it (and 26% say they have no opinion or did not respond to the question), according to the ABC/Post/Ipsos poll.
Trump will also have the chance to lay out his view that America has supremacy over the Western Hemisphere, what he has coined the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
That view was evident in the military operation that put American boots on the ground in Venezuela to capture then-President Nicolas Maduro and the ongoing strikes he’s authorized on boats allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean and Pacific that have killed more than 150 people.
That ideology was also a cornerstone in his repeated calls for the U.S. to “own” Greenland, something that alarmed many of America’s closest European allies. The president said that a deal with Denmark was in the works for ownership of the territory during his trip to Switzerland in January, but since then no other information has come from the White House about the status of those talks.
Immigration
The president will also likely tout success on the border and immigration, even as some public opinion has turned on the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the immigration crackdown he’s ordered.
The Department of Homeland Security said in December that 2.5 million undocumented migrants were removed from the U.S. and the president has celebrated the reduction in crossings as the southern border, both of which were major campaign promises.
However, as ICE operations have ramped up, public opinion has started turning against them in the wake of the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota by federal law enforcement.
The ABC/Post/Ipsos poll found that the president’s approval ratings on immigration are also at a low for his second term — with 58% disapproving of his handling of immigration and 40% approving.
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow contributed to this report.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes hands with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty during a photo opportunity ahead of a meeting in the State Department Building, Feb. 10, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
(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.
