Just days before the South Carolina GOP presidential primary, Gov. Chris Sununu told Politico he’s doing everything he can to keep former President Donald Trump from being his party’s nominee. And he urged his fellow citizens to stop living in fear of the impact of a second Trump presidency on America’s democratic institutions, telling Politico’s Governor’s Summit:
“A**holes come and go. But America is here to stay.”
The Governor’s Summit, which was held before a live audience and streamed online, included interviews with Govs. Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) and Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.)
Sununu is an outspoken Trump critic who championed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in his state’s First in the Nation presidential primary. Politico asked him what the GOP’s support for the former president says about the current state of the party.
“It won’t be his party forever,” Sununu replied. “It just won’t. At some point, Donald Trump won’t be here or whatever, you know, by one way or another.” And he pushed back against the argument that America’s democratic institutions are about to crumble because of Trump.
“If you’re one of these people that think democracy’s getting eroded and the institutions are crumbling — stop,” Sununu told the audience.
“This country has gone through hell and back. Let’s go all the way back to the Civil War, where we were getting completely torn apart. Our institutions stood strong.
“We go through World War I and World War II. We go through the racism and segregation of the Sixties. You go through a [time] like 1968 where some of America’s great voices were literally getting assassinated in front of us on television. And people said, ‘It’s over. America’s done.’
“But our institutions stood strong. We rallied back. We went through 9/11; we went through a pandemic,” Sununu said before concluding.
“Let me put it a different way: A**holes come and go. But America is here to stay.”
It’s not the first time Sununu has used profanity in public when talking about the former president. In 2022, he called Trump “f***ing crazy” during a speech to the Gridiron Club in Washington, D.C. (Sununu said afterward it was just a joke.)
Team Trump shrugged off Sununu’s comments as irrelevant.
“Has-been says what?” responded Trump spokesman Jason Miller.
“He no longer warrants a comment,” longtime Trump ally Corey Lewandowski said of Sununu.
Trump defeated Haley by 11 points in New Hampshire and is currently leading by more than 25 points in the latest RealClearPolitics average for Saturday’s South Carolina presidential primary. But Sununu isn’t giving up hope.
“Saturday’s a big day. I hope all the South Carolina folks are out there voting,” Sununu said, making yet another pitch for Haley. And he said Americans who are unhappy with their choices in November’s general election have only themselves to blame.
“If you want a different candidate than Biden or Trump, which most of us do, most everybody does, right? Then you’ve got to participate. You have such low voter participation … that isn’t because [our election system] is broken, that isn’t because another candidate raised more money. That’s because you chose not to show up.”
