Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, said he is concerned that the Republican conference could “break apart” if it embraces the Senate’s two-track approach to addressing taxes and the border.
In an interview on NewsNation’s “The Hill,” Short said there’s a risk that separating out border policy from tax reform will make it difficult to bring together the Republicans who want more spending cuts and others who are hesitant to touch Medicaid. Border policy could bring those Republican factions together, he said.
“The more you can put into one bill is going to actually favor the majority in the House, because they are going to need the border funding to attach the taxes to keep their conference together,” Short said Tuesday.
“Otherwise, I think the conference is going to break apart,” he added.
Short, as director of legislative affairs in the first Trump White House, was instrumental in crafting the tax reform bill in 2017. He noted in the interview that 12 House Republicans voted against that bill and noted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) can now only afford to lose one or two votes.
“Speaker Johnson has an incredibly difficult task here,” Short said, speaking before the House approved the budget resolution that will lay the foundation for enacting President Trump’s second-term legislative agenda.
The legislation — which provides a framework for Republican priorities on tax, border and energy in “one big, beautiful bill” — was approved in a 217-215 vote Tuesday evening.
The legislation now heads to the Senate, where a series of land mines loom. The House must reconcile with the Senate, which passed a budget resolution last week that uses a different strategy. Lawmakers must craft the Trump agenda bill in line with the parameters in the legislation, and they must get the final measure across the finish line in the conference’s razor-thin majority.
The Hill is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns NewsNation.
