Marc Short: Focus Must Be on 2022, Not Pence's Future VP Chances

It’s “foolish not to focus on 2022” rather than focusing on questions over whether former President Donald Trump would pick ex-Vice President Mike Pence as his running mate again in a potential 2024 reboot campaign, Pence’s former chief of staff Marc Short said Monday. 

“I think that the vice president said on several occasions that serving as vice president of the United States was one of the greatest honors of his life and I think looking back it’s remarkable what the two of them accomplished together,” Short said on Fox Business’ “Mornings With Maria.” 

But looking ahead, “we would be foolish not to focus on 2022,” said Short. “That’s our real opportunity to take back the House. That’s our real opportunity to continue to expand statehouses and governorships that will lay the predicate for 2024. I think taking our eye off the ball right now would be a mistake. We should be focused on the midterm elections.”

Short’s comments come after Trump told Fox News, in an interview after his speech Saturday night to the North Carolina GOP State Convention, that it is too soon to tell if he’ll pick Pence as his running mate in a potential 2024 election. 

“Certainly we had a very good relationship,” Trump said, adding that he was “disappointed with Mike on one thing,” making a likely referral to Pence’s refusal to block the Senate’s vote to confirm the Electoral College’s ballot for now-President Joe Biden. “He understands and some other people understand, but, overall, I had a very good relationship with Mike, and he’s a very fine person and a fine man.”

Meanwhile, Short said he does not think Republican lawmakers in Congress will ever vote to approve the creation of a global minimum tax rate of at least 15% after the G-7 nations reached a deal over the weekend for the reform measure. 

“It’s a terrible idea,” Short said. “In a way, the fact that the Biden administration is pushing so hard for it is a concession that they know if they’re successful in raising tax rates across the board as they’re trying to do, jobs will flee the United States to move overseas.”

The G-7’s agreement is nonbinding, he added, and doesn’t include countries like China and India, where most manufacturing jobs are going. 

“Nations like Ireland, who are below the 15% rate, would have a hard time stomaching that they would have to raise their taxes,” said Short. “At the end of the day, if the Biden administration wants to abandon 28% and take 15%, there may be some people that are pleased with that. The idea of a global (minimum tax) is just silly. I don’t think it would have any support among Republicans in Congress.”

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