Trump-bashing governor tap dances around pledge to vote for whoever wins GOP nomination
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu thinks Donald Trump might be "crazy," but he wouldn't rule out voting for him in 2024.
The potential GOP challenger confidently declared the former president would not win the Republican nomination next year, but he refused to tell MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist that he would vote for President Joe Biden or another Democrat if Trump did somehow emerge as party's standard bearer.
"I want to know about supporting the nominee if it is Trump," Brzezinski said. "Would you do that?"
"It's not going to be Trump, no," Sununu said. "It's just not going to be Trump."
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"That's not an answer," Brzezinski countered. "Let's say lightning struck twice, because lightning struck. Trump won on the one day he could win in a million different ways. What if it happens again? What if he becomes the nominee? Would you support him?"
Sununu tried to split rhetorical hairs.
"Of the former president, myself, one of us is a lifelong Republican," Sununu said. "One of us will always support the Republican nominee."
"But is he a lifelong Republican?" Brzezinski said.
"No, that's me, Mika," Sununu said.
"I think I got your answer," she said. "Willie, take it. That's fine, good job."
"Do you remember the day, there was a day when [Michael] Bloomberg was a Republican and Trump was a Democrat, right?" Sununu added. "I mean, that wasn't that long ago. It's crazy."
Geist asked the governor whether he could vote for a former president who incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in an effort to overturn his election loss, but Sununu tap-danced away from the question.
"We're not going to get to that place," Sununu insisted. "Look, we're not getting to that place, guys. Think about the American spirit. We never as Americans settle. We never settle for the technology, we want the next shiny thing, we always want the next new idea. We want our companies to grow, we want business and opportunity to move forward. You cannot tell me that it is in the conservative or American values to say that the best opportunity for future leadership is yesterday's leadership. That is not in our DNA. That's why I'm so hopeful and so optimistic, that with all these other candidates, and they're all very good candidates in terms of the alternatives, there's always another great opportunity. The race hasn't even started yet, and he is not leading in a lot of the polls. Guys, it ain't happening. By the way, he knows it. I really, truly believe he knows it."
"It'll be bit of a circus, I will give you that, but there is no way that former President Trump is going to be the nominee," he added.
Sununu tried to rationalize his position by attacking the Biden administration.
"Let's look at inflation, that is the worst tax on the poor, a party that wants to drive energy prices through the roof, which destroys or hurts low-income families that don't have the same opportunities," he said. "Policies out of Washington that want to force everybody through that same door -- it is our door, highway or nothing, forced down all the way at the local level, as opposed to supporting locals and believing and understanding it ain't about us. It's about the voters. The voters know better than we do. So that kind of Republican value of local control and limited government is always going to, excuse the pun, trump big government authoritarianism you're seeing out of Washington right now. Nobody likes that. Washington ain't getting done, and America is noticing."
Geist asked whether he believed Biden was more destructive than Trump, but Sununu backtracked.
"No, I didn't say destructive," Sununu said. "I said the policies of the left wing are incredibly, much more destructive than what the conservatives can bring."
Geist then asked whether a president who helped launch an attempted coup was better than Biden.
"Again, look, you're going back to Jan. 6, it was an absolute disaster," Sununu said. "Trump is not going to -- as much as you guys are trying to paint the picture, Trump is not going to be the nominee. We'll have a lot of folks in the race."
"Governor, if I got you in private, you'd say Donald Trump most certainly can be the nominee," Geist challenged.
"Oh, look, he can be," Sununu conceded. "A lot of folks can be, but it's just not going to happen. If you understand the politics, how to get from A to B, there's no path there. Is he going to go up in the up in the polls? No, it's only going to get worse. That's just a political reality as the race even starts to kick off."
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