Sanders shrugs off Vance as possible MAGA successor: 'Doesn’t matter to me who heads the Republican Party'

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday shrugged off the idea of Vice President Vance being the likely Republican frontrunner for the 2028 presidential elections.

“Neither Trump, nor he nor the Republicans of today have anything of significance to say to working class people,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash. 

“Doesn’t matter to me who heads the Republican Party," he added.

President Trump said on Tuesday that Vance would be the “most likely” successor of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) Movement in 2028. 

“So it’s too early to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job, and he would be probably favored at this point,” Trump said.

Bash reminded Sanders that Vance is from a working-class family in Ohio and could appeal to many voters in red states, but Sanders shrugged off the idea that the vice president could be a threat to Democrats in 2028.  

“What they are trying to do is divide us up, ‘you’re a Muslim, you’re undocumented, you’re black, you're gay, let’s divide everybody up so the rich can become richer’. Our job is to bring people together. Doesn’t matter to me who heads the Republican Party," he continued. 

Trump also said Tuesday that he would ‘probably not’ try to bridge a third term and touted the idea that Secretary of State Marco Rubio could run alongside Vance as vice president in 2028. 

In February, Vance was already seen as a favorite successor to Trump in a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) poll. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they would support Vance as the future of the Republican party. 

Other Republican politicos and media personalities have been rumored to be thinking about campaigning in 2028, including Secretary Rubio, right-wing influencer Steve Bannon and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.