A former Biden administration official is pouring cold water on Vice President JD Vance’s future aspirations after warning that comments he made this week while hosting the “Charlie Kirk Show” could come back to haunt him in a potential 2028 presidential bid.

Vance hosted the “Charlie Kirk Show” Monday in the wake of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing last week, and used the platform to denounce those ‘celebrating’ Kirk’s death.

Vance’s repeated condemnations and the manner in which he said them could prove problematic, however, for a future presidential bid, at least according to Andrew Bates, former White House spokesperson under President Joe Biden.

“If Vance tries to run in the 2028 cycle, I think that is a very telling moment about what are your real convictions, what are your real values, because it is an insult to every American that has been harmed by political violence, whatever their point of view was, to try to use it to fuel more anger and more division,” Bates said during an appearance on the “Raging Moderates” podcast that aired Friday.

Vance spent a significant portion of the two-hour episode condemning critics of Kirk, declaring that “no unity” was possible with those that “celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Assassination.”

“And there is no unity with the people who fund these articles, who pay the salaries of these terrorist sympathizers, who argue that Charlie Kirk – a loving husband and father – deserved a shot to the neck because he spoke words with which they disagree!” Vance said.

Vance is among the top contenders to take up President Donald Trump’s mantle in 2028, with Trump already diverting a small, but notable share of his fundraising hauls to Vance’s political action committee, netting $245,000 for the vice president in May and June alone.

But Vance’s comments on the “Charlie Kirk Show,” Bates argued, could be drudged up amid a potential White House bid, which Bates characterized as ‘railing against unity.’

“That is the exact opposite of how you’re supposed to react,” Bates said. “You’re supposed to respect people’s grief, not by exploiting them, not by trying to turn them against their fellow Americans. I don’t think there are many people whose first reaction was ‘we need more division,’ but that is what he was preaching.”