Nobody is playing as interesting a political game in the Republican Party right now as New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R). The looming question is: How committed is he to expanding the game board?
Sununu has, in recent months, inserted himself in the national dialogue by trying to act as a voice of reason in today’s GOP. The latest came this weekend, when at a comedy-themed dinner he said aloud what Politico says “most Republicans in Washington *privately* whisper” about former president Donald Trump: He’s crazy.
Sununu set up his joke at the Gridiron dinner by citing the possibility that Trump would return to the presidency after the 2024 election. He cited the “experience,” “passion” and “sense of integrity” Trump demonstrated in his tweets.
“Nah, I’m just kidding,” Sununu said. “He’s f---ing crazy.”
Sununu added: “The press often will ask me if I think Donald Trump is crazy. And I’ll say it this way: I don’t think he’s so crazy that you could put him in a mental institution. But I think if he were in one, he ain’t getting out.”
As one might expect, Sununu on Monday morning sought the plausible deniability that comes with delivering such remarks at a roast-style event.
“I don’t think he’s crazy,” Sununu said, according to the New Hampshire Journal. “It’s all a joke.”
Perhaps! But many a true word is said in jest. And Sununu had to know how such a joke would be received in a party still so thoroughly dominated by Trump. Even in his remarks to the Gridiron dinner, he joked, “I’m going to deny I ever said it.”
(Sununu also took aim at Trump’s business ventures, saying Mike Lindell’s MyPillow is “crap” and, “You only find that kind of stuff in the Trump hotel” — another joke likely to stick in the former president’s craw.)
It’s also merely the latest in a long line of comments in which Sununu has differed with not just Trump, but the broader GOP.
Sununu broke that GOP’s heart late last year when he declined to run for Senate in New Hampshire, blaming the national GOP for its lack of ambition and contentedness with simply blocking President Biden’s agenda. He said he had been “pretty close” to running but declined after consulting with GOP senators about the party’s plans.
“It bothered me that they were okay with that,” Sununu said.
The comment was particularly biting given that Republicans have indeed declined to articulate a 2022 agenda, and here was a big-name Republican confirming that the party doesn’t really have any ideas. Biden later cited Sununu’s comments while arguing that Republicans have no idea what they are for.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...unu-gop-trump/
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