Posted on 07/18/2024 5:14:49 AM PDT by Freeleesy
...but I was wrong. I was dead wrong on that. So, much has changed, right? I think a lot of us assume that the trials would have some impact. It didn't. The trials of Donald Trump have been so mishandled by the Democrats, both in terms of communication, the reality, you know, of each of the trials, Jack Smith screwing the Mar-a-Lago trial up, the Fani Willis and all the shenanigans going on in Georgia, all the issues that happened with, you know, Trump's trial, it's not hurting his poll numbers at all because the
Democrats and -- is -- are being exposed for a lot of the politicization that they were driving on with a lot of those issues.
And it's not just Chris Sununu saying that. America saw it. I mean, his poll numbers went up every time he went into a courtroom. Nobody thought that was going to happen, but that's the reality. The Democrats were that - - bungled those issues that badly.... And so, yes, there's no doubt that Donald Trump is in a much stronger position today than he has been in the last four years. He's got all the wind at its sails. The Democrats are in complete disarray. Who knows what's going to happen at that convention. You never know what you're going to get out of Joe Biden in any -- in every single interview, even all of his supporters are biting their fingernails, praying he can just answer a question..
(Excerpt) Read more at transcripts.cnn.com ...
Sununu was out in front throwing stones when it looked like Trump was going down.
That is true.
We here , most, on FR, never gave up on Trump.
Completely worthless pantywaist needs to be dragged kicking and screaming to the REPUBLICAN candidate.
Because voting for Donald Trump over the Democrat...that’s not who we are.
Yeah, we can tell.
Talk about a spineless man. Trying to redeem himself by tagging along the Train he loved to bash.
After reading this, it looks like their defense rests on how horrible the Jan. 6 rebels were. You know, those insurrectionists who showed up to destroy a country without any weapons and were LET IN to the capitol by the guards.
Also, a lot is made of Mike Pence being the turncoat that he is.
That is it. It is ALL they have.
Re: 5 - so, you do not want Sununu’s suport?
Tell you what, I’ll make a small wager that President Trump will welcome that support.
The DemoNrats didn’t “bungle” these issues. There were NO issues. The DemoNrats created them out of nothing!
That is what Americans saw.
That stumblebum, he ought to be carted off at TrumpII’s Inauguration.
I expect that Trump will receive lots of “support” from those who could not stop him. He will politely accept much of it, for what it’s worth.
Somebody put a foot on his fingers don’t let him onboard the TRUMP train.
He and pbs will be self employed in January.
Did he find out that the Trump campaign serves a nice buffet?
He needs to give a groveling apology in person.
Sununu is only backing Trump because Trump is winning, not because he agrees with him. He’s the definition of a fair weather friend.
What a piece of trash show Amanpour has, but that’s why it’s on PBS. Defund PBS. Defund NPR. Debank radicals.
This was a little hand-editing, mostly search and replace, if you don’t like it, make a nicer one, but whatever ya do, don’t complain to me about it.
WALTER ISAACSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST.: Thank you, Christiane. And, Governor Chris Sununu, welcome back to the show.
GOV. CHRIS SUNUNU (R-NH): Well, thanks. Thanks for having me back.
ISAACSON: After the assassination attempt on Former President Donald Trump, President Biden called on everybody to tone down the rhetoric, to cool things down. And Speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker, said just about the same thing. How do we do that? How is that possible?
SUNUNU: Well, look, it was great to see within the kind of that first 48 hours both sides, everyone’s saying, OK, the last few years has been polarizing, it’s been extreme. And obviously, with the assassination attempt, as awful as that was, maybe there was an opportunity to hit a reset button there, get back to issues, get back to talking about things that really matter to the American people. Now, the media can do that, elected officials can do that, but at the end of the day, it only happens when all of us do it, right? All 350 million Americans, as parents, as co-workers, as friends and neighbors, that we tone down our rhetoric as a whole. It has to be a cultural change. So, it’s not easy to do. I think it’s great that it starts with leadership. I’m a little nervous, and just — even in just some of the rhetoric I started seeing yesterday, the attacks on J.D. Vance and they’re back to saying that, you know, these guys are a threat to democracy and all of that sort of thing, that’s the type of rhetoric that gets really polarizing, that gets away from issues, that gets away from the election, right? And I think a lot of folks say, look, you, we have our differences. Let’s talk about those. We both want, you know, a great, solid America on both sides of the aisle. We both have different pathways to get there. Let’s talk about those pathways. Let’s do an election the way elections are supposed to be done and not talk about these existential threats to America, these existential threats to democracy, how evil these — each side is. No one’s evil here, right? They’re just fighting a good fight to hopefully get their policies to get America into a better place. But again, I go back to your — to the heart of your question, it’s incumbent upon all of us as individuals to kind of carry that responsibility, not for the next few months, but really into perpetuity, really setting that example for that entire next generation that’s watching us very closely.
ISAACSON: You talk about how politicians have said they want to lower the rhetoric, and already they’re not doing so. Even on J.D. Vance, who used to be somebody who was a great unifier when he wrote “Hillbilly Elegy,” I think people from all walks of life said, OK, I get something interesting in there. But now he’s been saying things like, the central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination. [13:30:00] But he’s somebody who also called Trump an American Hitler. He was much more of a non-Trumper than even you were. What do you think of him as a choice?
SUNUNU: I think it’s a great choice. I do. Look, let’s start in the very beginning. His background is phenomenal and that he had a really tough situation growing up. He dealt with a lot of real issues that a lot of Americans are dealing with, right? In his family, the challenges of drugs and mental health and poverty and all of these things. They made a movie about his life even before he was a U.S. senator. He’s obviously a Marine. That’s incredible. He’s incredibly smart. He went to Yale. So, he’s got the brains for the job. That’s for darn sure. He’s a U.S. senator, but he’s only been there about a year and a half. He’s not an insider to Washington, right? So, there’s an opportunity. He kind of brings that disruption a little bit. He’s not going to do it and hasn’t done it like folks have been in Washington for decades and decades. So, he has that outsider perspective, which is very refreshing, I think, to a lot of Americans. And frankly, he’s just a really nice guy. I mean, he’s a very, very nice guy. He’s had his differences with Trump in the past, as have I have, I think most folks are — have at some point. I mean, Kamala Harris has had some pretty amazing differences with Joe Biden in her past. I mean, if you go back to that debate where she tore Joe Biden apart.
ISAACSON: Well, we’re not talking about a rhetoric like America and Hitler.
SUNUNU: Well, she said he — I mean, they — she called them out on race. She called him out on busing. She called him out on being friends with segregationists. And then she decided to be his running mate, right. And all of a sudden, they’re buddies. So, they’re — you know, you don’t have to be a partnership for life going into the situation, but clearly, Trump and J.D. have found their friendship, their partnership. I think they understand what that — they each bring something a little different to the table. They each have different skills they can bring to the table. And for that, I think it’s a great ticket.
ISAACSON: Let me talk about J.D. Vance for a second, because I think he represents and solidifies the hold of a certain wing of the party, the more populist, more nationalist wing, one that doesn’t really support NATO that much, anti-corporate. There’s another wing of the party, which I associate you with, with Paul Ryan with and others, which I just call traditional conservatism. You can change — correct my labels if you want. Do you see the selection of Vance as moving the party and Trumpism down that road on towards populist nationalism rather than the more traditional small government, small spending conservatism?
SUNUNU: No, no, no. Look, I — both parties — and I’ll just speak to the Republican Party, we don’t have moderates and conservatives. There’s a whole spectrum, right? There’s a whole spectrum within our party of philosophies and platform positions and where they want to go both on domestic issues, on governance, on kind of the civics that you want to see within government. I’m a big believer in local government and limited government, localized control. And then there’s obviously the aspects of what we’re going to do internationally and the role of America that we need to play internationally. And we can all have our differences there, even amongst Republicans. So, no, I don’t think he represents a — the party going in one direction or not. As we know, Former President Trump, I think he’s doing very well. My guess is he’s going — if I was a betting man, he’s going to be winning in November and be the next president. He’s the spokesperson for the party. J.D. is a part of that now. But that doesn’t mean that their philosophies and principles represent every single Republican across the board. And that’s OK. Nothing wrong with that. There can be a lot of different points of view. And at the end of the day, what you really want is to have a president and a vice president that understand their roles, that can work as a team, work with states, work with Congress, hopefully find more efficiencies in government, keep America strong throughout the world. You can have different strategies and how to do that, but I’m a firm believer that world peace comes through America’s strength. And you have to support your allies and you have to put fear in your enemies. And I think, you know, there’s an opportunity to kind of enhance that a little bit. I think Former President Trump did it very well in his first term. There’s no doubt about that on the international side. And hopefully, we can get back to kind of, you know, bringing some of the peace that folks want to see worldwide, both in Ukraine and specifically in Israel.
ISAACSON: I’m sure you remember you’re on this show with me almost exactly a year ago. And you said, we’ve got to make sure Donald Trump in the nominee because he can’t win. Is that personal, meaning it wasn’t personal between you and the president, he just can’t mathematically win 2024? What made you think and evolve? [13:35:00]
SUNUNU: Yes. Oh, my goodness. I mean, I firmly believed it a year ago, but I was wrong. I was dead wrong on that. So, much has changed, right? I think a lot of us assume that the trials would have some impact. It didn’t. The trials of Donald Trump have been so mishandled by the Democrats, both in terms of communication, the reality, you know, of each of the trials, Jack Smith screwing the Mar-a-Lago trial up, the Fani Willis and all the shenanigans going on in Georgia, all the issues that happened with, you know, Trump’s trial, it’s not hurting his poll numbers at all because the Democrats and — is — are being exposed for a lot of the politicization that they were driving on with a lot of those issues. And it’s not just Chris Sununu saying that. America saw it. I mean, his poll numbers went up every time he went into a courtroom. Nobody thought that was going to happen, but that’s the reality. The Democrats were that - - bungled those issues that badly.
ISAACSON: Well, wait, wait, wait. Do you think that it’s simply the Democrats that made him popular? Do you think that had there not been these things, he would have lost?
SUNUNU: Oh, no. The Democrats put all their eggs in the basket of those trials, thinking that was going to end Donald Trump. And it — because — and why? Because they didn’t want to talk about inflation. They didn’t want to talk about what’s going on in the border. They didn’t want to talk about the struggles of the cost of living that every American has. So, they tried to make it about this bigger existential thing, and how Donald Trump is a threat to America and a threat to democracy. And no one’s buying it. No one’s buying it up and down. And the more we saw these trials get mishandled and all the other shenanigans that were going on with them, the more the liberal media tripled down on that aspect, it blew up in their faces and just put more winds in the sails of Former President Trump. The other issue, let’s remember, Trump won the primaries, right? I tried really hard, you know, for Nikki Haley. I think, you know, we had a lot of other really great candidates out there, obviously, but he — unlike Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Nikki Haley went through states, went through the primaries, went through the campaigns, and the voters had their say. And so, everyone said, OK, we fought it out the right way. Everyone had their shot. They voted for Trump. We’re going to get behind Trump. And everyone’s getting behind him because that’s what primaries are. You fight it out hard and you galvanize. The Democrats tried to coronate and they tried to consistently tell you that there was nothing wrong with Joe Biden, that everything was just fine, we’re going to try to skip the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire. We don’t need to have real challengers here. And now, look at where they are. It’s come — again, blown up in their faces and that’s their doing. That’s a hundred percent their doing. It’s completely on them. So, at the end of the day, all of their attempts to “thwart Donald Trump and the Republican Party” instead of talking about issues and finding better solutions and doing elections the right way, they tried to do it this kind of different way, this existential way, as I like to say, and it’s blown up in their face. And so, yes, there’s no doubt that Donald Trump is in a much stronger position today than he has been in the last four years. He’s got all the wind at its sails. The Democrats are in complete disarray. Who knows what’s going to happen at that convention. You never know what you’re going to get out of Joe Biden in any — in every single interview, even all of his supporters are biting their fingernails, praying he can just answer a question.
ISAACSON: You’ve just said that the Democrats misplayed this by making it seem like it was existential, like a threat to democracy. Donald Trump said he would pardon people who were involved in the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. You called these people who did that attack domestic terrorists. You said that Trump “absolutely contributed to this insurrection.” And, you know, obviously, you know what Mike Pence said, and Mike Pence said he couldn’t in good conscience do it because of this threat to democracy. Do you not see why people are worried about this threat to our orderly transfer of power that January 6th represented?
SUNUNU: Sure. So, look, I stick by — I don’t think any of those folks should be pardoned. I’m not going to be president. It’s not going to be my decision. And if that comes to be, I mean, that’s — that would be the president’s decision to do that. I disagree with that. I think those folks need to, you know, be punished because what happened on January 6th was absolutely terrible. The difference is I — you know, I don’t see January 6th. I don’t like it. I hate — everyone hated what we saw that day. There was no doubt that I — that, you know, Former President Trump, as I said before, his words definitely had impacted what happened on January 6th. Everybody saw that. I don’t like it, but it’s not a disqualifier. And I think too many folks on the Democrat side say, but that has to be a disqualifier. It’s not. And what you have is kind of — I’ll call it this liberal elite, right, that’s saying, but January 6th happened so we just can’t vote for him. But every American has the right to have a different set of priorities. Some Americans are getting crushed by inflation. Their credit card debt is through the roof. They can barely pay the rent. And they have every right to say, I need a change out of Washington because I need more opportunity for my family. And they shouldn’t be judged on that. [13:40:00] And you have Democrats all over this country, the liberal elite as I call them, judging America because they have — may have a different set of priorities. And that’s a fundamentally un-American, and it just ticks people off. We can disagree that’s OK -
(CROSSTALK — followed by the most stupid lie thus far)
ISAACSON: Well, wait. You call it the liberal elite, but the strongest voice in it, to me, is Michael Pence
SUNUNU: Yes, absolutely. No, no. Pence is — Pence — look, Pence isn’t out there every day with the liberal media telling folks that Trump is an existential threat to America. He’s saying, I’m not going to support him, I can’t get behind him. And he has every right to do that, and that’s fine. God bless Mike Pence. He’s earned the right to say and do whatever he wants, as has every single American in this country. The problem I have with the liberal elite is they’re judging people. They’re judging people for the priority. Some people think the border is a number one issue, that it’s a huge domestic — potential domestic and terrorist threat coming across the border. And I completely understand that. And I agree with that. I think it’s one of the top two issues in the country, but the Biden administration has done nothing. And so, folks are saying, we demand a change. We don’t like January 6th. We don’t like an election denial, but I need a change with these other things. And so, the problem is, going back to your original question, for two years, all we’ve heard out of the liberal media and the liberal elite are, yes, but January 6th and these trials, January 6th and these trials, they’re not talking about things that real Americans want to talk about. And that’s why Republicans are doing so well. They’re talking about real issues. They’re putting real ideas on the table. They’re engaging in the conversation in the right way as elections are supposed to be done. And so, the Democrats, again, have put all their marbles and, you know, talking about trials and a threat to democracy. I mean, let’s talk about the threat to democracy here. Think of all the folks that voted for Joe Biden. They did so — I didn’t do it, but they did so thinking that he was going to be making decisions for this country. Is he? Clearly not. Clearly, he’s not making decisions on a day-to-day basis for this country. So, everyone voted for someone, and I can’t tell you who’s actually making those decisions. That is very undemocratic, right? That’s not the democratic process. Vote for someone, but don’t worry, someone else is going to be in charge, and we’re not going to tell you who it is. I mean, really, can you tell me who’s making all the day-to-day decisions out of the White House right now? No. At least with Trump, you might not agree with his positions, you might — you know, we don’t like his tweets, we don’t like his personality sometimes, but at least you know he’s making real decisions for the country and where things are going, and you can have a discussion about where that is. But literally, the Democrats are trying to now get behind Joe Biden, and they don’t even know what they got. None of us do. So, that that gets people — that’s not even — that’s not a disagreement of ideas anymore, that’s just, well, what are we voting for? Who’s literally going to be in charge if we vote for Joe Biden? But the Democrats are saying, don’t worry, it’s just not Trump. That’s all you need to worry about. That’s a failed message. That’s a failed strategy. And then the reason is, because it’s not showing any respect to the American voter. It’s not showing any respect to the fact that voters care about ideas and issues and policies and things that will impact their families. It’s just saying trust us it’s not Trump. And so, I think this is — it all plays in to a failed master plan on the Democrat side that we’re just going to bash on Trump, tell people he’s scary, tell people he’s going to bring America down, he’s going to end America, the American process, the American experiment, a threat to democracy. We use all these big, scary words and be so polarizing and so fearful of him that America will have no doubt but not vote for him. That’s not how it works, guys.
ISAACSON: One of the things that Former President Trump and J.D. Vance agree on is a need for higher tariffs, I think. Stronger tariffs, protect manufacturing through tariffs, exit odds with the traditional Republican conservative thinking. Tell me, how would that affect people in New Hampshire, people in the United States, and do you think that’s a great idea?
SUNUNU: Well, look, it has its pros and cons. I don’t — fundamentally, I don’t think I have a problem with it. I’m not an international financing expert, per se. I’m a big believer in free trade. I mean, I love the concept of free trade. But again, seeing the free trade imbalance that we have across the world is, I think, driving the opportunity to make some different decisions on tariffs to say, look, if you’re going to tax our goods at X, then we’re going to tax your goods at Y, right, to create a more a more balanced and even playing field. Now, that can have its pros and cons. In a place like New Hampshire, we do a lot of international business. We’re a big aerospace and defense industry and our manufacturing side. Tourism is a big deal for. So, we deal a lot overseas, specifically Canada and Europe, Western Europe for the most part. So, what happens in China obviously will affect America as a whole just because so many of our products are bought there. That can have a trickle effect in a reverberation to Europe where, again, we want to make sure that there’s a more balanced opportunity there. Anything I can do so our — my businesses can sell products a little easier out of Europe and be more competitive with the European products that are coming in here, that’s a win, right? That helps our economy, that creates jobs, that puts more money into the economy, allows them to invest in capital and higher wages, all the whole nine yards. [13:45:00] So, anything we can do, but understand that what happens in China and what happens in Europe might be very different. And then you have to add India into the mix, by the way. So, you have to look at each area of the world a little bit differently. But at the end of the day, it always has to come back to the, what’s the result? Is the net result better for the American worker? Is the net result better for the American business? That’s all that matters.
ISAACSON: Governor Chris Sununu, thank you for joining us again.
SUNUNU: Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. (END VIDEOTAPE)
In other words we were hoping that the trials would provided the knockout punch, but it didn't. So, now I am relegated to pretending that I now support Trump, because the Democrats failed to deliver..
Sununu is the poster boy for the cuck RINO Republicans
“.....thought the trials would have done impact”. Translated— He was hoping it would have an impact such that he’d be in jail, dead or out of the race. Now that Trump has survived all that, Sunnunu wants back on the party gravy train.
Would he be fair-weather enough to run for Shaheen’s seat in ‘26? She’ll be 79.
He’d have more chance to win than the underwear model Scott Brown.
Absolutely! Every vote counts. I don’t care if you were a total moon at lefty who decided 10 seconds before voting that you can’t vote for the Potato and decide to vote Trump instead - I welcome your vote (even if I disagree with you on pretty much everything)
I didn’t see him at the convention, I hope they didn’t give him credentials.
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