Vice President JD Vance is expected to name Nick Luna, a 39-year-old White House insider with deep ties to President Trump, as his next chief of staff, a move that allies say positions the vice president for a 2028 presidential bid.
Luna, who currently serves as White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Implementation, will replace Jacob Reses, who plans to leave the administration by the end of summer 2026. Reses married in January, and his wife is expecting their first child. Vance had reportedly known of Reses's departure plans for months.
Punchbowl News first reported Luna's expected appointment, citing anonymous sources who described him as possessing a "sharp political mind." The outlet noted the pick may signal that Vance is actively preparing to succeed Trump in 2028, a prospect that has already drawn early polling attention from both parties.
Vance's office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment.
Luna is no stranger to the inner circle. Politico described him as Trump's "body man" back in 2019, noting he served as a personal aide to the president and was photographed carrying newspapers for Trump to read. From April 2020 through January 2021, Luna held the title of Director of Oval Office Operations, a tenure that covered much of the COVID-19 pandemic and the final stretch of Trump's first term.
When Trump named Luna as deputy chief of staff earlier in his second term, the president called him a "highly respected White House veteran and a Trump-Vance campaign warrior." Trump said Luna would "oversee Presidential scheduling, and ensure that external White House messaging, outreach, and operations are aligned with the administration's short- and long-term objectives."
Between Trump's two terms, Luna briefly served as one of the directors of CIC Ventures, a company he told the New York Times in 2022 "was in part established to oversee Trump's paid speeches during the break in the president's White House tenure." As of late 2024, the company was owned fully by The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust. Luna also consulted for FIFA during that period.
Luna's wife, Cassidy Dumbauld, has her own White House pedigree. She served as an assistant to Jared Kushner during Trump's first term. The couple began dating and married in 2020.
Luna's path back to the West Wing ran through one of Washington's most contentious episodes. He was present with Trump in the West Wing on the morning of January 6, 2021, which led to a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol breach.
Luna testified before the mostly Democratic panel in 2022. CBS News reported at the time that he told investigators he saw Trump "tearing" up documents but could not remember any of the details in them. The committee was heavily scrutinized by Republicans who viewed it as a partisan exercise. Luna's testimony did not derail his career; Trump brought him back into the administration at the start of his second term.
That resilience matters. In a White House where loyalty is currency, Luna has demonstrated staying power across both Trump terms and the years in between.
The Luna appointment comes amid broader turnover inside Vance's operation. Earlier in 2026, a trio of top Vance aides left the administration to join prominent Washington, D.C. lobbying firms. Politico reported in April that those departures might actually better position Vance for a possible 2028 run, the theory being that the vice president was shedding a governing-focused staff in favor of building a political one.
NBC News first reported Thursday that Reses planned to leave by the end of summer. His departure appears amicable. The stated reason, a new marriage and a baby on the way, is about as clean an exit as Washington allows.
But the pattern is hard to ignore. Staff changes inside a vice president's office two years before a presidential election are rarely just about personnel management. They are about positioning. And Vance, who has cultivated relationships across Washington's power centers during his time as vice president, appears to be building a team suited for the next chapter.
The reaction from Trump-world was swift and positive. Taylor Budowich, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Personnel, posted on X: "YUGE. Congrats, Nick!"
Alex Latcham, executive director of the Senate Leadership Fund and a former Trump campaign staffer, called Luna "the ultimate professional" and a "fantastic pick" in his own X post. The warmth from both the Trump orbit and the Republican Senate infrastructure suggests Luna arrives with broad goodwill inside the party.
That goodwill matters if the job is what it appears to be, not merely managing a vice president's schedule, but laying the groundwork for a national campaign. Luna's experience spans campaign operations, White House logistics, and private-sector consulting. He knows how Trump's world works because he has operated inside it for years.
Speculation about what comes next in the Trump White House has been a cottage industry since the second term began. But the Luna hire is a concrete move, not pundit chatter. It puts a tested operator in the chair closest to the vice president at a moment when the 2028 calendar is starting to matter.
No formal date has been announced for Luna's start in the new role, and Vance's office has not confirmed the appointment on the record. Those are gaps worth noting. Washington leaks personnel moves routinely, and the lack of an official statement leaves room for the details to shift.
Still, the direction is clear. Vance is retooling his inner circle with people who have deep campaign experience and personal loyalty to the broader Trump movement. Luna checks both boxes. He was there in the Oval Office during the first term's most turbulent days, stayed connected through the wilderness years, and earned a senior White House title at the start of the second.
At 39, Luna is young enough to run a grinding presidential campaign and seasoned enough to navigate the bureaucratic politics of the West Wing. For a vice president who has shared more of his personal story with the public in recent months, the choice of chief of staff says something about priorities. This is not a policy hire. It is a political one.
In Washington, you can learn a lot about where someone is headed by watching who they put in charge of getting them there.
