Marc Short, former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, is coming in hot after his testimony Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the insurrection on the Capitol on Jan. 6. He brought all the receipts to Rep. Matt Gaetz’s Monday in just a few brief sentences.
Short appeared on CNN’s OutFront with host Erin Burnett. Burnett played a clip of part of a speech by Gaetz criticizing Pence, and Short did not hold back.
Gaetz, who’s been on a misogynistic tirade lately despite the ongoing federal investigation into credible allegations he paid women for sex, sent money through Venmo to have sex with a minor, and trafficked a minor across state lines for the purposes of sex, had the audacity to call out Pence for not being a leader.
Gaetz called Pence a “low-energy, roadside RINO safari” and then declared, “Mike Pence will never be president. Nice guy. Not a leader.”
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Short returned Gaetz’s snipe admitting that he didn’t know if Pence would run in 2024 but lashed out with: “I’d be surprised if he [Gaetz] was still voting. It’s more likely he’ll be in prison for child sex trafficking… and I’m actually surprised that Florida law enforcement still allows him to teenage conferences like that.”
Short also spoke with CNN about the testimony from an unnamed White House security official who said that during the Jan. 6 attack, Pence’s security detail was calling their families “to say goodbye.”
“The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives,” the security official testified. “There was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of very personal calls over the radio. It was disturbing. I don’t like talking about it. There were calls to say goodbye to family members.”
Vice President Pence was with Short while the insurrectionists were shouting to “hang Mike Pence.” Short told Burnett he was “greatly skeptical” about the person’s testimony. “I never witnessed that from any of the secret service agents who were there,” he said.
Short added that, “if the rioters had gotten any closer, likely there would have been a massacre in the Capitol. It wouldn’t have been secret service agents who would have been the ones harmed… it would have been the rioters.“
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