Opinion | The ‘Rivalry’ Between Vance and Rubio

You’ve made jokes yourself — and facts come through jokes, as we know — that the president could host an “Apprentice”-style competition between you and Marco Rubio to be his successor. Is there a world where this peace deal goes badly and in a year or so, the president of the United States is like: Yeah, we gave JD the chance to make peace. And he didn’t. So I guess Marco’s star is rising. Is that a scenario that you think about? I don’t think about that at all. What I think about is this deal is good for the American people. You’re right. I have worked very hard on it. But Marco has been incredibly involved. The entire team has been incredibly involved. One of the weirdest media narratives that has developed is that Marco and I are somehow in this intense rivalry behind the scenes when he’s, like, one of my favorite people that I come to work with every day. – And, you know —— – I don’t think you’re in an intense rivalry, but I will note that he is the secretary of state and he is not running point on this deal. And you are. Well, I’m the vice president, and he’s been extremely involved. As we established at the outset, you’re higher in the line of succession. Yes, that’s true. So, again, the entire team has been involved. I think the reason that I took a particular interest in this and why the president gave me a particular set of responsibilities is, yeah, I do care a lot about this particular issue. No. 2, there’s always just an element of — and I don’t know fully the criteria the president uses for these things — but sometimes he says, “This person is the right person for this job. This person is the right person for that job.” I will say, this thing in particular has been sort of an all-hands-on-deck thing. So I’m not trying to deflect responsibility. I absolutely think this is a good deal for the American people. And I have been personally working very hard on it, but the entire administration has been working very hard on it.