Vice President JD Vance is losing the man who has been at his side since before he entered public life. Jacob Reses, Vance's chief of staff, will formally leave the White House by the end of summer, Fox News Digital reported.
No reason for the departure has been made public. No successor has been named. What is clear is that Reses' exit removes a fixture from Vance's inner circle, a confidant who helped build the vice president's political career from its earliest days and followed him from the Senate to the Naval Observatory.
The departure drew an unusual wave of praise from senior administration officials, a signal that Reses leaves on good terms rather than under a cloud. White House chief of staff Suzie Wiles, Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were among those who offered commendations. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff called Reses "a killer." Secretary of State Marco Rubio weighed in with a fuller tribute.
"Jacob has served the Vice President and the entire administration with distinction. He understands the moment we're in and he spent every day fighting to deliver results for the President. His intellect, leadership, and humor will be missed."
That kind of bipartisan-within-the-administration send-off is not common in Washington. It suggests Reses built relationships well beyond the vice president's office, and that his departure is not the product of internal friction.
Reses played a key role in Vance's 2022 Senate campaign in Ohio, a hard-fought primary that tested the future vice president's populist message before a national audience. From there, Reses moved with Vance to Capitol Hill and then to the White House after the 2024 election.
Vance's own statement made the personal dimension plain. He described Reses not just as a staffer but as a friend and counselor who had been with him through every chapter of his public career.
"Jacob's been by my side for my whole career in public life. I can't imagine having been on this life-changing journey without him. From day one of my time as a Senator-elect, I could not have asked for a more loyal and discerning advisor and friend as my chief of staff."
Vance added that he intends to keep Reses close even after the formal departure. "I'll miss him dearly, but he won't be far, and I plan to keep his counsel close until our paths cross again," he said.
The vice president's office has not disclosed what Reses plans to do next or when exactly his last day will fall. "By the end of summer" is the only timeline on the record.
A chief of staff departure is always more than a personnel footnote. For a vice president widely regarded as a leading contender for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, the question of who runs his office matters beyond the current term.
Reses was not a typical Washington hire. He came up through Vance's own political rise, which gave him an understanding of the vice president's instincts, priorities, and political style that a new chief of staff will need time to develop. Replacing institutional knowledge like that is never seamless.
The departure also comes during a period when questions have circulated about Vance's standing inside the West Wing. Losing a trusted operator at this moment raises practical questions about how the vice president's office will function during a busy legislative stretch and an active policy calendar.
None of that means the departure signals trouble. The outpouring of praise from cabinet-level officials suggests otherwise. But it does mean the vice president's team faces a transition at a time when continuity matters.
News of Reses' planned exit came just days after Vance made headlines on a different front. During an appearance on Fox News' "Jesse Watters Primetime," the vice president announced he had referred allegations involving Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to the Justice Department's fraud division for a potential criminal investigation.
Vance said he made the referral before leaving the White House to tape the interview.
"We're certainly going to investigate this, Jesse, and I guess now I can make a bit of breaking news because I left the White House to come here to do this interview with you. And before I did, we actually referred this particular case to the Department of Justice for a full criminal investigation. We are not going to do what the Biden administration did and make judgments of the law before all the facts are in."
The referral followed a House Oversight Committee report that alleged state officials in Minnesota, including Walz and Ellison, had been warned about fraud but failed to act. The report described concerns that officials declined to intervene in part because of litigation threats and fears of being accused of discrimination.
Vance did not hold back about what he saw as the core problem, that whistleblowers inside the governor's office were silenced when they tried to flag suspicious activity.
"But here's what's particularly troubling about this to me is, Jesse, you had people within Governor Walz's office who were saying, you know what? This looks like fraud. It looks like these Somalian illegal immigrants are doing something that's very shady, and then you had people who shut them down, who shut these whistleblowers down and said, you know, you're a racist or you're a xenophobe for asking questions about where taxpayer money is going."
It is not yet clear whether the Justice Department has opened a formal criminal investigation based on Vance's referral. The specific allegations included in the referral have not been publicly detailed beyond what Vance and the House Oversight Committee report described.
Several loose ends remain. The vice president's office has not said who will replace Reses or whether an interim chief of staff will serve during the transition. Reses himself has not spoken publicly about his plans.
On the Minnesota fraud front, the ball is now in the Justice Department's court. Whether prosecutors pursue a full investigation, and whether Walz or Ellison face any formal legal jeopardy, remains to be seen. The House Oversight Committee report laid out the allegations, but a congressional report and a federal prosecution are very different things.
For Vance, the coming months will test whether his office can maintain its pace without the man who helped build it. The transition will be closely watched by allies and rivals alike, particularly those already gaming out the 2028 landscape.
Washington chews through staff at a brutal pace. The ones who leave with praise from the entire cabinet earned something rarer than a title. The question now is whether whoever fills that chair can earn the same trust.