The quiet part was just said out loud. Vice President JD Vance told national newspapers that he is “ready for the job” should “a terrible tragedy” strike Donald Trump. That one sentence tells us more than a hundred White House press releases. If everything were fine, if Trump’s health were truly “incredible” as Vance insists, why is his second-in-command practicing his acceptance speech in the pages of USA Today?

This is how Washington signals collapse.

Republicans spent the first year of Trump’s return to power pushing one thing and one thing only: the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Then they sat on their hands. No sustained legislative agenda. Why? Because the insiders knew Trump wouldn’t last. They weren’t preparing for a second term of governing, they were preparing for a succession.

And now the mask is slipping.

The Leaks Are Loud

Political operatives don’t waste words in national newspapers. They don’t float hypotheticals for fun. Every line is tested, cleared, and intentional. So when JD Vance says he’s ready, it’s not a reassurance — it’s a leak. It’s the inner circle telling donors, lobbyists, and the Republican base to brace themselves.

The timing matters. Trump turned 79 in June. His physician insists that his bruised, swollen hands are the result of “chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition.” But the photos that circulated — purple, bloated, visibly weakening — and sometimes covered with bad makeup, appear to tell another story. Now those images fall into place. The context is no longer rumor. It’s succession planning.

A Managed Decline

This is politics as theater. The public is shown the strongman image — Trump as tireless, “the last person making calls at night and the first in the morning,” in Vance’s words. Behind the curtain, though, the script is being rewritten. Vance is carefully and publicly positioning himself as the steady hand, the heir who has received in his words “the best on-the-job training” of any vice president.

It’s the oldest Washington trick: deny, reassure, and simultaneously know the opposite. “He’s fine, he’s strong, he’ll serve his term,” they say — while quietly building for when the understudy needs to step in.

Why Now?

Because this must be serious. If the leaks are surfacing now, it means the inner circle no longer believes they can keep the curtain closed much longer. Speculation is already rampant, and silence would only feed the panic. Better to get ahead of it, to ease the base into the possibility, to introduce JD Vance as a figure of stability before the crisis hits.

And make no mistake: the crisis is coming. As Rick Wilson put it bluntly, “Slow or fast, he’s headed down.”

The Bottom Line

The photos of Trump’s swollen hands, his recent musings about going to heaven, the whispers about his stamina, the sudden “readiness” remarks from Vance — it all points to one conclusion: Republican insiders know Trump’s health is failing, and they’re preparing the handoff.

They gave the country one bill, then bided their time. Now we see why. The plan was never to govern for four years. The plan was to buy time until the inevitable death of Trump.

The GOP is leaking because the endgame has begun.

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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a nationally recognized policy scholar, public intellectual, and civil rights advocate. A trusted voice in public policy, he has testified for state legislatures, the U.S. Congress, the United Nations, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, while also advising presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. His work has been cited by major outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and he has appeared on networks from MSNBC and PBS to NPR and DemocracyNow!. He is a recipient of more than 30 honors, including the 2025 NAACP Keeper of the Flame Award, Vasquez Heilig brings both scholarly rigor and grassroots commitment to the fight for equity and justice.