Gov. Sununu: Why New Hampshire’s Different

What happens at the Gridiron, doesn't stay.

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New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu stops by Dispatch HQ to talk with Steve about his record, from pandemic response to school choice. With eyes towards 2024, they discuss The Granite State’s role in primaries, Sununu’s own presidential prospects, and his unfiltered thoughts about former president Trump.

Here is a rough transcript for reference:

HAYES: Governor Sununu, great to have you. Nice to have you in the very fancy Dispatch podcast offices and good to sit across the table. 

SUNUNU: Of Washington DC, my favorite place on earth.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Dvrenken

    Good and fun interview. I work doing the lighting at FNC and we had the Governor in our studio today and I told him I enjoyed Steve Hayes' interview of him on the dispatch. He seemed very personable with everyone here. I hope he decides to run. Thanks Steve for this podcast.

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    Ben Connelly

    Good interview. Steve, I think you did a good job of being friendly but tough in your questions.

    Sununu is completely right about Scotch - if you drink the really good stuff it tastes great, but if you drink the really mediocre stuff it’s terrible. Still I’ll take a bad scotch over a bad bourbon most days of the week.

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  3. Wakernan

    Turn up your volumn

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    Andy Napoli

    The very first time I drank to get drunk (senior year of high school), I pounded almost ten consecutive shots of Absolut and Peach Schnapps. To this day, Peach Schnapps is on the "no go" list. Just the whiff of it is enough to turn my stomach. Sometime in grad school, I shifted to beer, and I've been a microbrew beer snob ever since.

    On a serious note, I have to say, this was a great interview and I had no idea Governor Chris Sununu was such a personable, sharp-witted, well-spoken conservative. I had never seen or heard him in a long-interview format. I am deeply impressed.

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    John Will

    I had a very unfortunate encounter with multiple screwdrivers in high school. Hence, I can not get almost any hard liquor near my nose. When it comes to wine, my experience is that, the more it costs, the worse it tastes. I got through college on Boone's Farm and Ripple (that might give you an idea of my age), and now I'm a Moscato/Sangria guy. Bottom line is, I'm an inveterate beer snob. For me, it's the wine theory in reverse. Nothing like an obscenely expensive Belgian tripel or Irish stout.

    It was a good interview, and I like Sununu, but he may have lost me when he said he would support the Republican candidate and that he doesn't think it will be Trump.Sounds like duckspeak to me. That's what they all say when they know he's not fit and they're doing the actuarial arbitrage thing. Someone needs to cowboy up and "bell the cat," as Jonah put it.

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  6. Lane.Patterson

    Steve, I'm more than a little disappointed that you didn't pin down the Governor about his comment that he'd vote for Trump again. After EVERYTHING we've seen?!? He is clearly not Dispatch/Remnant material.

    Maybe y'all should avoid having politicians on at all. That definitely hurt your brand in my estimation.

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      Aylene Wright

      Hmm. I guess we may have different opinions on what TDs mission is. I don't assume that TD interviewing a politician is meant to be an endorsement of their candidacy or some signal that they passed a moral purity test or anything like that.

      I also see a difference between the purpose of the Remnant podcast and the TD Podcast. The Remnant does focus on guests Jonah sees as simpatico in some way.

      But the TD podcast has interviewed people like Chip Roy and Mick Mulvaney, and both impressed me less than Sununu did here.

      Seems some people came away liking Sununu and some disliked him and some were "I liked him until he refused to rule out voting for Trump". I think that's evidence that this was a fair interview, not hostile but not just fluff either.

      I also don't think calling Trump crazy was really that big an anti-Trump move in the first place. Lindsey Graham has joked about Trump being crazy too, and he was one of the first Republicans to actually endorse Trump this time around. So I wasn't that disappointed in Sununu here because I wasn't that impressed with him to begin with.

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        Andy Napoli

        The real problem the GOP has, is *not* Republicans who won't telegraph in advance, that they wouldn't support Trump even if he runs and wins fair-and-square in the GOP primary. The real problem the GOP will have to deal with, is Trump refusing to endorse the winner of the GOP primary if he loses, and whether he'll tell his supporters to support the GOP nominee if it's not him. Governor Chris Sununu and others are being circumspect on this question, not because they're a coward, but because they do not want to give Trump his his #Cult45 worshippers any excuse to bolt from the GOP and doom the country to a near-guaranteed Democratic victory in 2024. It's a tactical move.

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      2. Lane.Patterson

        I hear you and those are all good points. I wasn't that impressed with Sununu either - I think what irked me is that it seemed like Steve was. I guess I'm just not yet in a place where I can consider anyone willing to vote for T after January 6th a serious person. Maybe I was being too tough on Steve, but after how passionately he has talked about his feelings about T, I thought a bit more than glossing over Sununu's voting pledge was in order.

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  7. Aecrowder

    I really appreciated Steve's interviewing skills here! He did a wonderful job of pressing Sununu on Trump - pushed back on Sununu's claim of being transparent and authentic while not responding honestly about Trump - in a subtle way that didn't derail the interview but also made it obvious to listeners where Sununu stands.

    On a different note, I didn't know much about Sununu before this interview. Listening to this episode, I really liked him initially (he seems to have a good disposition for governing, lots of energy, and integrity), but ultimately I'm not sure how much I actually like him. He seems like a lot of the well-educated white men in our society who think they are the only ones looking at things logically when in actuality their thinking is only rational if you're only working with their specific, limited set of facts.

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  8. Runyan.Jason

    That was one of the best interviews yet! It was so refreshing to hear from a sane, normal, traditional republican. He certainly won my vote, even if he has little to no chance of winning because the Republican Party has no interest in sane or normal candidates, as they are now a party of lunatics.

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    TheMatMan

    When Sununu listed the number of state residents, I got curious. New Hampshire is roughly 50% larger than Fresno County, California in land area with about 40% more population. New Hampshire is about 90% white. Fresno County has about 10% reporting an Asian ethnic background alone.

    The more I read about it, the more I find it insane that this state carries such an oversized import in our primary systems. Sununu seems like a nice guy, but as the last three presidents have shown, the right experience matters. I'd vote for him over the populists, but I'd like someone with a record more than, "I ran a homogeneous area a bit bigger than Fresno County" at the helm.

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    Jeff Walden

    So he sounds like a decent guy...but it turns out, he's just as cowardly about standing up to Trump as the rest of them. (Tho, unlike Haley or McCarthy, he's at least not flip-flopping, that I know of.)

    Just own the claim that Trump is crazy, guv'nah. It's good for the party, it's good for that long term you profess to care more about than the day-to-day...and it's just the truth, and you and I and basically everyone else responsible left in the party knows it.

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      Dvrenken

      Jeff, You must know that if he was serious about running as a Republican he can't emphasize his position on the craziness of Trump. I mean, do you think Liz Cheney, who I love, would have a chance in winning the nomination for a run to the White House? She knew she was throwing that opportunity away and we are all the better for it. But the Governor, if he was to run, knows he has to cater to his future constituents to get the nominations.

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        Jeff Walden

        And this logic, when everyone partakes of it, is what results in a 2016 race where no one attacks him and by carrying a few early elections he sweeps to primary victory. And then we all lose in consequence.

        Come on. Someone's gotta stand up to him. And no one is doing it, except in "jest", "deniably". You don't have to be fiery, you don't have to go guns blazing like Cheney pretty much did, but when asked point-blank, you have to own it.

        Because if no one does, there's a really good chance he'll just win by default, and then all these "decent guys" will be wringing their hands as if they had no hand in it.

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