Halfway through his victory speech Tuesday night, a jubilant but exhausted Donald Trump turned to soon-to-be vice president J.D. Vance and asked him to take over. “Say a few words,” Trump ordered.

Vance dutifully thanked his boss ‘for your trust in me’ and promised the crowd: ‘We will lead the greatest economic comeback in American history.’

“It turned out to be a good choice,” Trump boasted. ‘I was a little angry at first, but… I know the brain is good, no matter how good it is.’

This is high praise from Donald, and Trumpologists were quick to note the potential significance of his anointing at that moment.

Was this a harbinger of how the next US administration would shake out? Or is there even a hint in Trump’s mind that Vance is his heir apparent?

Trump is 78 years old. At the start of his second term in the White House, he will be 159 days older than his rival Joe Biden was on Inauguration Day in 2021 — although Biden, of course, has quickly fallen behind in office.

JD Vance and his wife Usha (pictured)

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance arrives at a campaign event at Penn State Behrend Erie Hall on Saturday, October 26

Trump is inevitably starting to show some signs of fragility. And so Vance, who is 38 years Trump’s junior, will take on more and more of the administrative workload.

Insiders told me that the man they call ‘JD’ will be the real driving force and intellectual weight of the Trump agenda in 2025.

‘He has a great team around him,’ says one. ‘They’re ready to get to work.’

It’s been quite a comeback year for the 40-year-old Vance. After Trump nominated him on July 15, Vance went through a torrid time at the hands of the Leftist US media.

Experts called him ‘weird’ because he was a devout Catholic and staunch conservative.

Democrats inevitably took great pleasure in pointing out the strange fact that in 2016 Vance was highly critical of Trump, comparing him to ‘Hitler’ and ‘cultural heroin’.

His Indian American wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, has been the target of online harassment. Additionally, an old video of him insulting ‘childless cat women’ went viral, leading commentators to brand him as a terrible and potentially election-losing candidate.

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his wife Usha listen to Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speak at his election night rally at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner listen as Donald Trump speaks at his election night rally on November 6

However, rather than fearing these attacks, Vance preferred to confront his critics directly.

He became the campaign’s best warrior in what Trump calls the ‘enemy camp’: America’s deeply unbalanced Left-liberal media.

He has appeared dozens of times on hostile news channels and has demonstrated his ability to refute his opponents’ arguments.

While Trump came up short in his debate against Kamala Harris, Vance did great in his head-to-head contest with Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.

Vance and Trump are opposites in many ways, but that made them a formidable duo; the former is expected to act as a vital advisor to his boss.

Vance has a modest and humble personality. Trump is famous for his braggadocio.

Vance grew up very poor in Ohio, served in the Marine Corps, and used his formidable brain to get a scholarship to Yale Law School before entering politics.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump appears with vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance during the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024

Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and his wife Usha, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, Linda McMahon, Howard Lutnick and Bryson Dechambeau listen to Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speak at his election night rally at the Palm Beach County Convention Center Nov. 6 in West Palm Beach, Florida

Trump was a rich kid from New York who dodged military service and transformed himself into a billionaire businessman and TV star.

Trump had others write his books for him. Vance is the author of Hillbilly Elegy, an acclaimed memoir about her teenage life with a drug-addicted mother and a fatherless man.

Trump was married three times and was a proud playboy. Vance is a devoted husband to Usha, with whom he has three children.

Trump’s approach to politics is instinctive and transactional. Vance is an intellectual with a deep philosophical understanding of the conservative movement in America.

But—and this is the kicker—Vance wasn’t elected just because he could help Trump win in 2024.

He was chosen as the person to lead the Make America Great Again movement after Trump moved on.

Vance and Trump agree on policy on all issues, from an ‘America First’ approach to the importance of tariffs, oil and gas drilling, and strong borders.

Senator J.D. Vance (3rd L) and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance (2nd L), former senior advisor to Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump (3rd R) and former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner (2nd R), at a meeting attended the election night event hosted by former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Palm Beach Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States on November 6

Donald Trump gives his thumbs up during a speech at Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s election night vigil party in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6.

Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate Senator J.D. Vance and his wife Usha Vance look at each other at the Palm Beach County Convention Center following the initial results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 6

Now back in office, Trump could do the same thing Biden did in his first year with Kamala Harris: make the vice president his ‘border czar’ with a special mandate to address illegal immigration.

It is known that Harris plays this role very well. But Vance is now expected to embark on what could be the defining and most controversial policy of the new administration’s first 100 days: deporting more than a million undocumented immigrants.

As Trump approaches senility, Vance will soon be on the world stage.

Some predict that Trump is likely to strike a people’s peace deal with Vladimir Putin, but that his ‘Veep’ will play a key behind-the-scenes role in how to end the stalemate in Ukraine.

Of course, everything could end badly: Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence worked dutifully for four years but found himself persona non grata in Trumpworld because he would not accept Trump’s dangerous insistence that he should refuse to certify the disputed 2020 results. vote.

J.D. Vance, like so many before him, may eventually find himself frozen by Trump’s affections. But for now, he is in the prime position to lead America’s resurgent Right into the 2028 presidential election and beyond.