Conservative strategist and co-founder of the Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson, is sounding the alarm—and this time, it’s not just about Donald Trump’s legal woes or political chaos. It’s about something far more final.
In a bombshell statement on Friday, Wilson declared: “Slow or fast, he’s headed down.” According to the anti-Trump Republican insider, the president is not just politically fading—he’s physically deteriorating, and could die at any moment. The small, tightly held circle around him knows it.
“Rumors from the Trumpverse are that the circle who knows what’s up is very, very small and very, very paranoid,” Wilson wrote, fueling speculation that the MAGA machine is bracing for a seismic power shift. At the center of that speculation is none other than Trump’s Vice President J.D. Vance.
“J.D Vance knows, and he’s moving fast,” Wilson wrote. Vance’s recent comments—described by Wilson as Thursday’s “‘I’m ready to take over’ remarks”—are being interpreted as a calculated move. It’s not just ambition. It’s readiness. And it’s rattling cages.
“Sure to rankle Trump,” Wilson said, Vance’s posture has apparently triggered “backstage muttering among the MAGA Hunger Games contestants.” The power vacuum, Wilson warns, is forming fast—and it’s already drawing blood.
“It’s about to get really, really ugly,” he added, hinting at an all-out brawl behind closed doors.
To underscore the gravity of his message, Wilson also linked to a Lincoln Project video ominously titled The Snake. “We made this a year ago, as a warning to Donald,” he wrote.
For a movement that thrives on loyalty, spectacle, and the illusion of invincibility, this is the last thing it wants in the headlines: whispers of death and a vice president-in-waiting who’s already rehearsing the role.
Whether Trump’s health is truly failing or not, the perception is already taking hold among insiders—and perception, in Trumpworld, often becomes prophecy.
Read the full Substack post here.
Watch the “Snake” video below.
