JD Vance finished behind two other men when the president was asked to name the best-looking member of his own administration.
President Donald Trump, 80, praised Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio before he got around to his vice president in an exchange on the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” that became public Nov. 2, 2026, the eve of the Tuesday, Nov. 3 midterm elections that handed Democrats control of both the House and the Senate.
Host Miranda Devine set up the question with four names: Vance, Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Hegseth. “Who is the best-looking member of your administration?” she asked. Trump began by calling all of his young Cabinet members attractive, then started narrowing the field.
Central Casting for the Treasury
“Pete’s a good-looking guy,” he said of Hegseth. “You’re going to get me in big trouble when you ask me those questions.”
Rubio, 55, came next. “I’ll tell you what,” he continued. “Marco’s really a great hot politician in the sense that he’s done great.”
Vance, 42, drew a shorter notice. “JD, the same thing,” Trump said. “They’re all doing great.”
Bessent fared better. Trump called him “central casting” and kept going. “If I was going to do a movie on the Treasury, I’d pick him for the lead,” he said. “They’re all good.”
An Endorsement He Would Not Promise
Trump has repeatedly floated a Vance-Rubio ticket for 2028, an arrangement the vice president has described in less certain terms. Vance told journalist Mark Halperin on “2WAY TONIGHT” on Oct. 19 that he expects the president’s endorsement if he runs.
The next day, Trump used an Oval Office announcement of the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program — which pays tipsters a 1 percent commission on the fraud their tips help uncover — to decline to commit to that endorsement. “It’s early, very early right now. We have to get through the midterms,” he said.
The Senator Trump Sized Up
Trump spent part of the closing stretch commenting on other people’s bodies. At an Oct. 12 rally in Youngstown, Ohio, he recounted sizing up Ohio Sen. Jon Husted, a former All-American defensive back at the University of Dayton, looking him over from his hands to his backside and praising him in crude terms. Husted lost his Senate seat to Democrat Sherrod Brown on Nov. 3. Trump also complimented the body of rapper Nicki Minaj at an Oct. 26 rally in Michigan.
Fox News host Jesse Watters, 48, asked Vance about the running commentary on Husted at a town hall in Texas on Thursday, Oct. 29. Vance laughed and answered, “Well, first of all, I’m jealous; the president has never said that about me” — then suggested he might head back to the gym. He described Trump as a comedian by nature who likes to liven up an audience.
Asked a serious question at the same town hall about affordability, Vance quipped that he was surprised more people weren’t asking him about Husted’s derriere “before proceeding to answer the question.” The clip circulated on X, where viewers mocked it as weird.
Voters were telling pollsters they cared about other things. A Gallup poll released Oct. 29 found half of registered voters rating the economy and healthcare extremely important to their vote, and 47 percent saying the same of the war in Iran. Roughly four in 10 pointed to income and wealth distribution at 44 percent, gas prices at 42 percent, immigration at 40 percent and abortion at 38 percent. A Pew Research Center survey in early October put the share of registered voters rating the economy very important at 84 percent. Republicans went into the vote squeezed by elevated gas prices, the war in Iran and the cost of living crisis.
Six Senate Seats Flip to Democrats
Democrats won Senate races in Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, Maine and Iowa as results came in overnight after the Nov. 3 vote. They flipped House seats in states including Kentucky, New Jersey, Indiana and North Carolina, regaining a chamber they last held in 2023, and picked up governorships including Kansas and Texas.
Trump told Fox News of his own candidates: “I thought they’d do better, we had tremendous rallies.” He congratulated the Democrats — “They did a good job. They worked very hard.” — and said Republicans would have won nationwide had he been on the ballot.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, after his re-election win in Georgia, said: “In sweeping and decisive victories the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption, and incompetence of the failed lame duck president Donald J Trump.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on the morning of Nov. 4: “President Trump continues to exercise his powers, and we sincerely hope that he will continue his peacekeeping efforts.”
Democratic Senate candidate Mary Peltola, meanwhile, is contending with a report that her campaign helped recruit a second Dan Sullivan onto the Alaska ballot, apparently to confuse voters looking for Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Peltola said she had no knowledge of any other candidates on the ballot and no interest in deceiving voters, calling the story a diversion from issues such as affordability. The Justice Department sent target letters on Election Day to Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and others in a criminal probe of the second Sullivan’s candidacy. The race had not been called as of Thursday, Nov. 5.
In Michigan, Democrat Haley Stevens lost the Senate primary to Abdul El-Sayed, endorsed him, then backed Republican nominee Mike Rogers. She said El-Sayed refused to address her worries and those of her constituents, citing some of his positions, his ties to Hasan Piker, his ads with Tucker Carlson and his not condemning an ad blaming Israel for the high price of groceries. El-Sayed won the seat on Nov. 3.
Trump turned his eye on himself two days before the vote. On Sunday, Nov. 1, he posted a split-screen image on Truth Social lining up the right side of his face with the right side of Elvis Presley’s, echoing a comparison he posted in February 2024 with a note that people had pointed out the resemblance to him for years. That same day, a New York Times poll showed Democrats leading in all seven swing states, including an 11-point lead in Michigan.
