Trump's Trials - Marc Short, former chief of staff to VP Pence, discusses Trump's 100 days in office

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, about the differences in President Trump's second-term agenda from his first term. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detro and you're listening to Trump's terms from NPR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. It's going to be a very aggressive first hundred days of the new Congress. An unpredictable and transformative next four years. The United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. Each episode we bring you NPR's coverage of President Trump acting on his own terms. And that means sometimes doing things that no American president has tried before. NPR is covering it all in stories

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It's Here and Now Anytime, a daily podcast from NPR and WBUR. I'm Stephen Skeep. President Trump is marking 100 days in office. The president travels this evening to Michigan. Yeah, he'll speak in Macomb County outside Detroit. It's a classic blue-collar swing county that voted twice for President Obama, then three times for President Trump. On this program we're hearing many perspectives on the administration. Yesterday, Steve sat down for a video interview with Trump's sometime adviser, Steve Bannon. We'll hear that talk tomorrow.

This morning we have two outside perspectives. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey joins us in a moment. We begin with Mark Short, a longtime advisor to Trump's first Vice President, Mike Pence. Mr. Short, welcome back. Steve, thanks for having me. How, if at all, do you think these 100 days have changed the country? Well, Steve, I think that the president has brought remarkable energy back into the Oval Office, which I think is a stark contrast to the preceding administration.

But I also think that, look, our founders created a very durable system. And I think that some of the changes are probably more temporary. And I think some of those changes actually are things that I think the president is doing well. I think, unfortunately, the things that are probably have more lasting impact are things that I think the president is doing well. I think unfortunately the things that are probably have more lasting impact are things that are not going as well, such as launching a trade war with the globe.

And I think some of the foreign policy that I think is very different from the first administration that appears far weaker than the stances that the first Trump administration took toward Russia or toward Iran Iran or in some cases I think the trade agenda pushing allies into the hands of our greatest adversary China So I think those could have more longer lasting impacts Now this is really interesting mark because the president has imposed tariffs change the tariffs change them almost daily

It seems you could change them again and again that a successor could change them back But you seem to think this will have lasting impacts, why? Well, I think that the impacts take a little bit of time to begin to have their impact on the American economy. So you've seen it immediately in markets and people's 401ks, but now you're beginning to see dramatic impacts in shipping channels and trucking deliveries and perhaps,

soon merchandise in stores. But I think globally as well, in the first administration, the president used tariffs fairly selectively to isolate China and rallied allies against some of China's unfair trade practices. When you launch a global war against everybody, including your closest allies, in many cases they're now looking for trading partners and they're looking to sort of pushing them into the hands of China and in many cases into socialist countries in Europe. And so in some cases those countries are benefiting more from trade today than we will be. As a conservative, how do you view the president's approach to the courts in this term? I think it's a little bit of a mixed bag.

I think that what we've seen in recent days is even some of his picks at the district court level or appeals court or even Supreme Court rule against him. So I think that in many cases, I think it's been he's launched fair attacks that I think from an executive position, he's expanding the authority under the executive branch and I think he's looking for the courts to see what are those limits. In some cases he's winning but in some cases he's not. Well there's also the case of the man who was taken to El Salvador and the Supreme Court agreed that he should facilitate returning the man and the president says I'm following court orders and the Supreme Court ruled for me. He just decided that the Supreme Court ruled for him even though they seem to have ruled against him for the most part. Yeah. I think that ultimately certainly he should be following the court's ruling.

I think that that's not going to benefit well to him if he looks to pick more fights with the Supreme Court. Having said that from a sheer, sheer political perspective, I do think that the border crisis was something that a lot of Americans wanted Donald Trump to fix. And he's come in and made a dramatic impact on the border. And I think that rallying behind the one individual who, who was crisis was something that a lot of Americans wanted Donald Trump to fix and he's come in and made a dramatic impact on the border and I think that rallying behind the one individual who certainly was accused by his spouse of

Domestic abuse and had been tried before 17 different judges, you know I think that the Democrats have tried to make an argument He never received due process where I think in reality He received a lot more due process in immigration courts than a lot of people who have come to our country legally and basically avoided Immigration for eight years before his first apprehended with the large group of ms-13 individuals So I'm not sure he's the most sympathetic case for Democrats politically understood very briefly We're gonna hear next from the governor of Massachusetts, which is where Harvard is. The administration demanded sweeping control over big parts of the university and cut off billions of dollars in contracts and research grants and Harvard sued. In about 15 seconds, how do you view that? I think for a lot of

Americans it's hard to understand a school with a $53 billion endowment having much sympathy when they argue for additional federal taxpayer dollars. I think there's a lot of schools who didn't promote the same DI programs and promoted anti-Semite programs that made Jewish students uncomfortable where the federal government could provide grants for other research and so I'm not sure this is one Americans feel sympathetic. Mark Short, advisor to former Vice President Pence, Thanks so much. Thanks, Steve. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR politics podcast where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest

political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks as always to our NPR plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsored messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. The scary new movie Sinners from the director of Black Panther finds Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers. It's got vampires, it's got great music, and it's a fun one to see with a big crowd.

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