THE WHITE HOUSE

Once a Yale-educated Trump-loathing liberal, America's new vice president JD Vance has reinvented himself as a MAGA champion with Oval Office ambitions. But following his attacks on President Zelenksy and British troops, is he a principled ideologue or self-serving sycophant?

- Peter Sheridan

AMERICA'S vice president JD Vance is just a heartbeat from the Oval Office. Though two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump have already been thwarted, the threat is ever-present.

Or it might take only one more greasy Big Mac, or a blood pressure-busting temper tantrum to spark the coronary that sends 78-year-old Trump six feet under the White House rose garden.

Within minutes Vance, aged 40, could find himself swearing the oath of office as leader of the free world, seated behind the fabled Resolute desk once it has returned from the cleaning Trump ordered after Elon Musk's four-year-old son wiped his nose on it.

But Washington DC insiders suspect that Vance is not leaving his future to the vagaries of Trump's arteries, or the poor aim of would-be assassins. Rather than being a quietly subservient vice president trotted out for ceremonial occasions and to attend the funerals of minor foreign heads of state, in six short weeks Vance has forcefully positioned himself as the likely successor to Trump's throne.

"The best thing for my future is actually the best thing for the American people, which is that we do a really good job over the next three and a half years," he said last month.

"Vance has his eyes on the prize," says a senior Democratic Party insider. "His lips are going to be firmly affixed to Trump's backside, while he's pulling strings behind the scenes."

But is Vance a principled ideologue, or a self-interested sycophant who at least for the moment has Trump's ear? The world watched in shock as Vance led Trump in last week's savage ambush of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.

While Trump told the war-embattled leader that he had "no cards" to play, it was Vance, seated beside Trump on a gold brocade couch, who demanded that Zelensky bend the knee, insisting: "You've never once said thank you" even though the Ukrainian leader has publicly thanked America more than 30 times.