Marc Short, chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, said Wednesday he's confident the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will come up for a vote on the House floor this fall, and that it will likely get the votes needed to pass.
"There are 31 congressional Democrats residing in districts that Donald Trump won in 2016," Short told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. "More importantly, those are districts that create an enormous number of manufacturing jobs in the auto industry or agriculture jobs ... so we think the votes are there on a bipartisan basis to pass it, but there still needs to be, I think, some additional work with [House] Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi because she holds the keys about when she gets to bring it to the floor for a vote."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has had "very good" conversations with Pelosi, Short added, and has also earned trust with congressional Democrats.
Meanwhile, in a separate appearance later in the morning Wednesday, Short told reporters outside the White House that he could not yet give an explanation about why Pence's planned trip to New Hampshire on July 2 was abruptly called off, reports Politico.
Air Force Two never took off to take Pence for his talk on the U.S. opioid epidemic, causing speculation about the change of plans.
President Donald Trump last Friday said the reason would be public soon, but teased that there was a "very interesting problem that they had in New Hampshire."
Officials have said the speech was not canceled because of health reasons, or for matters of national security or family or personal issues.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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