Former chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence Mark Short says former President Donald Trump was surrounded by “snake-oil salesmen.”
During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd asked Short about the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
He asked Short, “Had he gotten legal advice that said well, you can’t decide which electoral votes are yes and no, but you can adjourn this session and delay things?”
Todd added, “Had he gotten legal advice to do that? Was the Vice President considering it?”
Short responded, “No, Chuck. I think, unfortunately, the president had many bad advisors who were basically snake-oil salesmen, giving him really random and novel ideas as to what the Vice President could do.”
Todd then asked, “Are you chalking this up to bad advisors, or was the former president seeking the bad advice?”
The former aide explained, “I don’t know the answer to that question. I think that honestly, he did get a lot of bad advice.”
Watch his comments below:
ICYMI: Former President Trump "got a lot of bad advice," former Chief of Staff to Vice President Mike Pence @marctshort says.
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) February 7, 2022
"Unfortunately the president had many bad advisers who were basically snake-oil salesmen." pic.twitter.com/Z7CLaj6sIJ
During a speech at a Federalist Society event on Friday, Pence rejected the claim that he had the authority to overturn election results, as IJR reported.
“There are those in our party who believe that as the presiding officer of the joint session of Congress, that I possessed unilateral authority to reject Electoral College votes. And I heard this week, President Trump said I had the right to overturn the election. President Trump is wrong,” Pence said.
He added, “I had no right to overturn the election. The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. And frankly, there is no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
In a statement last week, Trump suggested the January 6 select committee should “be investigating why Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!”