GOP strategist Marc Short said that President Donald Trump’s second-term corruption will make him especially vulnerable in the midterms.
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Short, the former chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN that voters will respond to the increase in corruption during Trump’s second term with louder calls to drain the swamp.
“I do think there’s a difference in the second term, and I think that one of the rally cries that I heard again in 2016 and 2020, repeatedly, that got the crowd’s most animated was a promise to drain the swamp,” Short said. “And I do think that in the second administration, the president’s administration has made the swamp the family’s personal hot tub.”
Short suggested that rallying cry could play to Democrats’ advantage in the midterms if they say they’re doing investigations into alleged corruption by the Trump administration, and the base of the party hears those promises.
“And I think that there’s far more corruption that’s happened this go-around that makes them far more vulnerable to a lot of the investigations that they should be more concerned about than it seems,” Short said.
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On top of that, Short said that Trump isn’t as invested in the midterms because he believes he’s already taken on the investigations by Democrats.
“He can talk about securing the border. He can talk about tax relief. He can talk about the markets being at all-time highs, but honestly, I don’t think the president really cares about the midterms,” Short said.
Trump was impeached twice, Short also noted, but Trump “looks at it as, ‘I’ve defeated them twice, and they sent the DOJ after me,'” but he’s still standing.
“And candidly, he has more fun sparring with [Hakeem] Jeffries and [Chuck] Schumer than he does with [Mike] Johnson and [John] Thune,” Short said. “And so a lot of Republicans are counting on President Trump, but he’s said himself he’s not invested in the midterms.”
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