Republican governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu sat with MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday, and while he repeated many of his well-worn, anti-Donald Trump talking points regarding the 2024 presidential election, he shared an idea that may surprise those paying attention: a White House occupied not by President Joe Biden, but by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Interviewing on “Inside With Jen Psaki,” Sununu was asked about the first Republican presidential primary debate that aired Wednesday on Fox News, with Psaki noting that “it took 51 minutes in that debate for any of those topics [relating to Trump’s four indictments] to come up. What did you make of that?”
The New Hampshire governor said that it was “perfect” that Trump topics didn’t overtake the debate out the gate, because “that’s about Donald Trump, that’s not about the future of this country.”
“Look, Republicans are trying to save the country, Donald Trump is trying to save himself, right? So, when it comes to a debate, we don’t want to just be rehashing yesterday’s news. We want to be forward, we want to be about 2024,” Sununu said.
That’s when Psaki pivoted her attention to a breakout candidate from that first debate, Vivek Ramaswamy. Noting that he’s moving up in the polls — including polls out of Sununu’s own New Hampshire — since his performance on Wednesday, Psaki asked how the governor feels about the businessman-turned-political hopeful’s more divisive stances.
“I mean, he said climate change is a hoax,” Psaki said. “Do you think that is something that you would want to see on the platform of your party?”
Sununu responded by basically saying, “Well, he’s not Trump.”
“I — look, there’s no doubt he took some positions that for me, personally, are a challenge,” Sununu admitted. “Do they connect with the Republican base? I don’t know. I can tell you all those candidates could win in November of ’24, and that’s exciting.”
That’s when the governor doubled down, emphasizing once again that Trump “can’t win” in November 2024.
“The math doesn’t work out. If you’re supporting Donald Trump today, you’re effectively handing it to Kamala Harris, potentially, down the road,” he said. “So, I think the opportunity is a new face, fresh ideas. But I think Vivek, Haley, Pence, DeSantis — they all did very, very well.”
Psaki, for her part, did not challenge the Harris statement and instead continued the interview with questions about the impact of Trump’s historic mug shot. Find a clip from that portion of the interview below:
