JD Vance visited Iowa for the first time as vice president in a glimpse of what could lay ahead for 2028 — but things quickly went off the rails.
While speaking at a manufacturing facility in Des Moines Tuesday, Vance awkwardly fumbled through his prepared remarks for about 30 seconds. At one point, he asked for assistance from GOP Rep. Zach Nunn, who he was in the state to campaign for.
“When I see Iowa farmers who need to get that E15 to market…What is uh this? What is uh, Zach you’re gonna have to help me out with her name here, I lost my page here,” Vance said from the podium.
He then rifled through pages on the lectern while supporters stood silently behind him holding “Made in America” signs.
“Okay alright, okay there we go: Sarah Trone Garriot,” he said, referring to a state senator, who is Nunn’s likely Democratic challenger. “Im on the wrong page here.”
Clips of the gaffe spread rapidly across social media, racking up hundreds of thousands of views and sparking a wave of mocking commentary.
“He’s ‘on the wrong page’ every second of every day,” wrote one X user, while another compared him to a robot. “Maybe we need to unplug and then plug him back in again,” the person quipped.
“Maybe he needs to take a cognitive test,” a third user wrote. Another replied with a GIF of the Hindenburg blimp engulfed in flames.
Others responded more graciously, acknowledging that mistakes are inevitable.
“JD Vance had a rough moment on the podium,” wrote one X user. “Lost his place, stumbled through the name, then reset — happens more than people think in live speeches.”
Several commenters pointed to the contrast between Vance’s stumbling and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s White House briefing Tuesday, where he earned praise for his off-the-cuff responses and ability to distill the administration’s foreign policy into clear, bite-sized points - with a few Nineties rap references thrown in for good measure.
Both Vance and Rubio are seen as contenders for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. The men, who are close friends, have remained tight-lipped about their White House ambitions, but several signs point to the possibility that they may enter the race, including their high popularity among Republicans.
In a March survey of respondents at the Conservative Political Action Conference, 53 percent said they preferred Vance to be the 2028 GOP presidential nominee, while Rubio came in second with 35 percent. By comparison, 61 percent backed Vance in the 2025 poll, while just 3 percent favored Rubio.
In recent months, President Donald Trump has pitted the two men against each other by repeatedly naming them as potential successors.
“They’re both very capable,” Trump said. “I do think this: The combination of JD and Marco would be very hard to be beaten, I think. But you never know in politics, right?”
“Vance-Rubio is the president's dream ticket…and to be clear, that's Vance on top,” an unnamed Trump adviser told Axios in February. “But would Trump be happy with a Rubio-Vance ticket? Absolutely.”
If the pair decide to enter the race, they will almost certainly find themselves in Iowa, home to the nation’s first caucus and a key testing ground for any national campaign.
They will also have to decide whether to distance themselves from Trump — given that several of the president’s major initiatives, including the Iran war and his sweeping tariff regime, have proved deeply unpopular.
