During an appearance on America Reports, Fox News political analyst and host Juan Williams engaged in a discussion with former Vice President Mike Pence’s Chief of Staff Marc Short about the 2024 GOP primary. The conversation touched on the upcoming announcement of Pence’s run, as well as the potential entry of other candidates.
Anchor John Roberts kicked off the conversation by highlighting the expectation of more candidates entering the GOP primary, including Chris Christie. He asked Williams if diluting the Republican field would play to Donald Trump’s strengths.
Williams responded by stating that there was no question that a crowded field would benefit Trump. He pointed to Trump’s base, estimating it to be in the 20 to 30% range among Republican voters. With more candidates in the race, Williams argued that they would have to vie for the remaining 70%, ultimately helping Trump.
After further analysis from Williams, Roberts turned to Short and posed a challenging question: how can candidates align themselves with Trump’s policies while distancing themselves from the flaws of the former president himself?
Short acknowledged Williams’ earlier point about Trump’s base, but he also noted that the market dynamics and time would likely influence the field of candidates by the time January arrived. Short then expressed some criticisms of Trump, suggesting that some people within the Republican Party had concerns about the former president’s departure from his earlier policy stances. He cited examples such as Trump’s shifting position on abortion and his seemingly different approach to Russia and Ukraine.
Roberts interjected, reminding the participants of Trump’s statement about ending the Ukraine war in an afternoon. Williams burst into laughter at the remark, prompting Roberts to jokingly tell him to look it up. The lighthearted moment added some levity to the conversation as Short smiled in response.
“The more the merrier. We’re expecting Chris Christie to get in next week. Who knows who else is has yet to jump in, but there’s a lot of potential contenders out there. Do you believe that diluting the Republican field plays the Donald Trump strengths?” Roberts asked.
“I don’t think there’s any question. I just look at the math. He has a base, you would say is in the 20 to 30% range in terms of the Republican voters. And so if you have more people in the race who could just aggregate the remaining 70%, that’s all to his advantage,” Williams replied.
After some more analysis from Williams, Roberts asked Short, “So here’s the hard road — we’ll finish out with you Mark – to run here for all of these Republican candidates, because everybody in the Republican Party liked Donald Trump’s policies. Right? They thought that the candidate, the president himself was flawed. So how do you run the same lane as Trump in terms of policy but say, but I’m not that guy?”
“Well, I think to Juan’s point, there’s a 25 to 30% base, but I think the market is going to dictate this by the time you get to next January. There’s a lot of time to play out and not all these candidates will be there in January,” Short replied before hammering Trump:
But I think candidly, John, a lot of us like Donald Trump’s policies when he is president. We wonder if he’s walked away from those policies, from the guy who championed overturning Roe v Wade. He now says, hey, look, we need to put abortion back on the negotiating table for the guy who took on Russian mercenaries in Syria and canceled Nordstream to he now welcomes Putin invading Ukraine for the guy who we think helped generate enormous economic growth, his policies on entitlement spending, he’s exactly the same as Joe Biden. So in essence, Trump isn’t the same person he was when he as president.
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“But, he did say he could the end the Ukraine war in an afternoon,” shot back Roberts.“Is that right?” Williams said as he laughed loudly.
“Look it up,
