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Let's turn back to Capitol Hill.
The Treasury Secretary Scimpesson saying how since Senate Republicans can cut a deal on salt within the next two days, believing senators can begin voting on the bill by Friday, President Donald Trump writing, no one goes on vacation until it's done. The former chief of staff the Vice President, Mike penns Mark Short, joined us now for more. Mark, good morning, Good to see you as always, Thanks for
being here, Thank you for being here. You're a big part of passing the president's first tax bill in his first term. How different is this effort? How much harder is it this time?
I actually don't think it is harder, because I think the prospect of having a two and a half treeon hour in tax increase for a lot of Americans or twenty one hundred dollars per family is a big enough threat that it keeps you Republicans united. So there's going to be a lot of noise over the next several days, and a lot of noise on the Medicaid provisions will being noise unsolved, But I think ultimately there'll be sufficient votes in the House and.
Sent to get it done.
Can we get to the noise on sol And I'd love your personal opinion on this. What you think they should do that they aren't doing right now?
Well, I think from a policy perspective, the salt provisions are terrible. I think the reality is that you have Middle America subsidizing blue states that are poorly run, and they have enormous deficits, and so they provide enormous deductions because their taxes are so high, it provides no incentive for them to actually fix their own problems if their
wealthiest tax payers are able to have enormous deductions. Having said that, what I think is actually going to happen is they think that with the standard deduction now at thirty thousand dollars, the priority for those who want the salt deduction is to get it to forty thousand, but they'll lower the income threshold. Now, how many people have income under forty four hundred thousand dollars they're taking deductions of over forty thousand, I think is probably a pretty
small number. But the realtor base, actually the lobby base, is more concerned about getting the deduction back because one of the provisions that we pass twenty seventeen. Prior to that, there were thirty one percent of taxpayers itemized. Today it's down to nine or ten percent. And the real estate industry wants that back, and so I think you're going to see them fight for the forty thousand, the lower the income threshold.
I will just say New York does contribute about eight percent of the GDP to the overall United States of America, and it doesn't get the same amount back. So there is this argument being made by a lot of representatives in New York that actually the US is the number of blue states have been cheated by US spending. So I mean that is sort of a backdrop here, just to recognize that.
I think leastly just argument go on a per capita basis. Sure, but I think it's hard to argue that New York and federal cities aren't getting their fair share of federal dollars.
To take a step back and beyond the SEL debate, which I'm sure it could be, we don't want to get to New York.
Social media spending.
Social media spending, I'm telling you, just definitely invest in in hone those strategies. But I am curious about, you know, just going forward, how important it is to get those offsets and how to attenuated. Some of the Republican Congress members are to offsetting any kind of increase the deficit, if it's not from potential cuts, then from increasing tariffs.
Well, okay, those are two big different questions. I'm a little bit cynical on this, I confess to you. The reality is that neither party is addressing was driving that the deficit is the debt. Neither party is willing to address entitlements pending. So you're going to hear people who pound their chest and say we're fiscal conservatives and we need more cuts here, but we're really talking about pennies on the margin of the size of this bill and
the size of where our debt is today. So if they were really serious about wanting to cut the debt, they'd actually be addressing in titlements. And so yeah, I think you'll see some posturing from some people, but ultimately, again I think they're going to fall in line because it's not just the fact you have an enormous tax
increase on working families. There's also significant border funding in this And if you can tell me that they're going to be members from border states who are Republicans are going to pose this bill with President Trump in the White House. I just don't see it happening now. On the terroriffs, look, the reality is you talk about the significant revenue coming in. I think that again, that's a
tax on the American people. That's what the Repords Company is not coming from foreign Government's coming from American importers. And the reality is you're one hundred percent right on the days of this that you know we're anticipating from Peter Navarro ninety deals in ninety days. We see where that's con so far. And I think they wanted to push the July nine D eight because they're hoping they get this all wrapped up by July fourth. If it slides past July fourth, I think you'll see that date
slide as well. But you're going to continue to see I think the President wants the leverage to be able to use the tariffs however he wants whenever he wants, which provides enormous uncertainty in the economy.
The presidents of the Nights have summer today. I'd love to turn to foreign policy with you. What did you think through the strike server at a weekend and the current posture of this administration.
I think it was exactly the right call, and I think that it's actually pretty consistent with where he was in the first administration if you recall the maximum pressure campaign and the strike on solid Money. I think what is different is that I think the first administration had a pretty united foreign policy. I think there's much more divergence in the second administration on what that foreign policy.
Is within the White House, I think, so I.
Think within the White House too, not just with outside.
What do you think the biggest difference is at the moment within the White Well.
I think that there's a lot of people who have embraced sort of the isolationism of the party today, and I think they are represented, their voices are representing the White House. But I think the President made the right decision, and I think that I think moving forward, Iran wants ceasefire because it buys some more time. I mean, how many seasefires have Iran and Hamas agreed to since the Ranian Revolution forty six years ago. So I think it's important in the United States stand with Israel.
And this is going to sound somewhat contradictory. But to be successfully isolationists, do you have to be interventionists sometime? Do you have to demonstrate that to do nothing you have to be willing to do something now?
Again, Well, that assumes that those who are articulating isolation's views today are actually consistent in their viewpoints. I think that in many cases there are plenty of grifters that have surrounded the president and so they were isolations in this moment, they were interventionists eight, nine, ten years ago. So I think the premise of your question applies there's actually consistency on those articularly in that few today, And I don't think there.
Is just pairing this with NATO. Do we have a sense of what the final word is going to be with Russia and Russia Ukraine? Given the willingness to use intervention in or on, is there a discussion around that and support for that in the case of Russia.
I think that's one of the biggest, starkest differences between the first administration and the second administration. And the first administration. President Trump would be very proud about having sent Javelin missiles and talked and ridiculed that Obama only sent blankets to Ukraine, there was plenty of I think deterrence against Russia. That it seems this time around that is not that same position, and so I'm not sure that what happened in the Middle East and Iran actually applies to what's
going to happen in Ukraine and Russia. It seems that this administration is not as supportive in Ukraine as the first.
Trump administration UK What do you think changed.
I think that there's several things that change. I do think that there's a different personnel in the White ass I think that from where it was as far as the State Department, the National Security Staff, and frankly the Vice President. I think those are big personnel changes that differ in this form policy.
Make sure I appreciate your time as always. Good to see you, Thanks for being here. Really good to see you.