Ex-Trump Honcho on CNN Trashes ‘Gross, Inexcusable’ New Pardons

Ex-Trump White House official Marc Short trashed President Donald Trump over a new raft of pardons, telling CNN anchor Abby Phillip he’s willing to defend Trump policies, but not “gross” and “inexcusable” pardons.

Trump announced the pardons of reality stars Todd Chrisley and Julie Chrisley Tuesday, even as news broke that another pardon recipient, former nursing home executive and convicted tax criminal Paul Walczak, got his free pass after his mother attended a $1 million-a-head Trump fundraising dinner.

On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip was joined by Short, Adrienne Elrod, Shermichael Singleton, Dan Koh, Tara Palmeri, and Hadas Gold to talk about the pardons.

Short not only ripped the new pardons, he called back to Trump’s pardon of “the people who beat up police”:

ABBY PHILLIP: This is part of a pattern and it has been almost accelerating in part because Trump has put a huge loyalist in the pardon office. But this particular case, I mean, it’s so interesting because this guy, I mean, allegedly according to what he was convicted of, this started, you know, maybe over a decade ago that he was skimming money that was supposed to be for employment taxes and using it to pay for a yacht and now a get-out-of-jail free card, Marc, just because he his mother raised money for Donald Trump. That just seems to be the swamp being filled, not drained.

MARC SHORT: Well, look, Abby, I think probably on tonight’s show I’ll be defending a lot of the Trump administration policies. I have no interest in defending his pardon policy. I think it’s been pretty gross. I think it even was, frankly, at the end of the first administration, we looked at the pardons that came out, there’s a lot of coverage at that point about January 6th and the people that were pardoned were sort of ignored in that coverage.

But for the administration that I think prides itself on being tough on crime, the first administration, pardons are inexcusable. One of the big legislative accomplishments in theory was the get-out-of-jail free legislation he passed.

PHILLIP: Is this the First Step Act?

SHORT: Yes. And I think that now it’s almost like he looked at what Biden did. I think that’s what makes it difficult for Democrats to condemn it is because of how gross Biden’s pardons were. But it’s almost like he saw what Biden and said, hold my beer and I’m going to show you and go farther.

PHILLIP: I mean, okay, it was — interestingly, I mean. I think you would get a lot of Democrats arguing the First Step Act was actually a good thing that Trump did in this first term.

SHORT: Sure, a lot of Democrats do argue about it.

PHILLIP: But what he is doing now is not the First Step Act.

DAN KOH: Definitely. I think this is a larger —

TARA PALMERI: Yes.

KOH: It’s a larger pattern of Donald Trump selling out the little guy in favor of the big guy. If you don’t have the resources, he’ll send you to CECOT without due process. But if you have resources, you’ll get out of jail for free, right? If you’re a minor who works hard, he’ll cut the program at HHS that takes care of minors while standing on stage and saying that he’s for minors, or he’ll give a pardon to a reality T.V. star with resources instead of helping people who need a tax cut.

This is just part of a larger trend with Donald Trump, who will always do things for the wealthy, while also claiming he’s for working class people, but doing absolutely nothing to back it up, as a matter of fact, undercutting them in the process.

PALMERI: I just think like what these people represent though, they’re all sort of a part of the do Donald Trump narrative. He is pardoning reality stars who are being accused of white collar crimes. President Trump, who is the ultimate victim, namely of some white collar crimes, I mean, if he exonerates them and it makes him look better, it changes the narrative of his story, you know, tax evasion, these kind of crimes that aren’t always as tangible.

SHORT: I don’t know if they’re all white collar crimes. I mean, the first big crime group he did was pardoning the people who beat up police.

PALMERI: No, but I mean these people in particular.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.