State of the Union: Interview With Gov. Chris Sununu (R- NH)
Interview
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Well, again, I think there's a lot of unknowns.
I can tell you, I think it's building a lot of sympathy for the former president. I think the fact that I was with -- coffee this morning with some folks, and they're -- none of them were big Trump supporters, but they all said they felt like he was being attacked.
And, as you pointed out, this is likely some sort of misdemeanor on an issue seven years ago. This has nothing to do with January 6. There's folks out there that still thinks this has something to do with January 6.
So, I just think that the, -- not just the media, but really a lot of the Democrats have misplayed this, in terms of building sympathy for the former president. And it does drastically change the paradigm as we go into the '24 election.
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Well, sure.
Look, if someone's calling for protests, you always want to make sure that they're peaceful. And we know that that's going to happen. And that has happened before. In long history, in recent history in America, folks are always out there protesting what they see as an unjustified arrest or an unjustified indictment.
But you want to make sure it's peaceful. We don't want history to repeat itself in overly negative ways. But -- so, that's going to happen out there. And it's not -- you can't just put it on the former president. It's our responsibility, right, in society, in our communities, to make sure that, if we have something to say, we're doing it in the right way, and making sure we're making a positive effect going forward.
But it is going to be a circus, right? It is going to be a bit of a political circus. There's going to be a lot of unknowns. As you brought up, this could be a misdemeanor. This was tried -- I believe something similar was tried against Edwards, the former presidential, candidate years ago, and got nowhere.
So, this is untested. There's a question about the why they're doing it, something seven years ago. It's not a nothing, but it's moving money and how he claimed money being moved between him and his lawyer. You know, there are other issues that really take precedent in terms of where this country needs to go, what we need to do to get stuff done, how we manage our budgets, how we secure the border.
There's much more pressing issues of the day. It's just unfortunate this has taken the headlines.
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Well, look, he knows he has to somehow get the morale of these -- of what troops are remaining up in any way he can.
The Russian army has been absolutely decimated. It's been demoralized. They're leaving the lines left and right. This is Putin's last -- if you will, last stand. I mean, I think it could go on a long time, but his last, latest big attempt to get some morale-boosting and kind of add into that propaganda machine.
Ukraine has done just a miraculous job in terms of the resolve of those individuals and resolve of those people. Obviously, I have been very clear and a lot of other folks have been very clear about us having to back Ukraine's play. Russia is no friend of the United States.
So this is the United States. We support freedom, right? We don't capitulate. We don't back down from it. We support countries. We support our allies. We support coalitions. And, again, I think what you're seeing out of Vladimir Putin is a little bit of desperation now just to keep the troops together.
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Well, I don't think it's disqualifying, but this is a clear -- it's not even a questionable -- a clear vital national interest to support what is going on in Ukraine.
It sends a message to our enemies if we were to back out now that we're not resolved. It sends a message to China if they were to take an aggressive approach to Taiwan. It sends a message to our coalitions and our allies that we are going to be there, that they can count on us, that this -- we're not just a partner.
This is the United States of America. We lead from a place of strength, of freedom, of courage. And we -- and folks need to know that they can count on us to be there. And so that, again, creates opportunities here at home. It secures our interests at home, when not only we say we're the world leader, but we act like it too.
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Well, let's walk through it.
If you -- yes, so if you let Russia start -- come in and walk over Ukraine, you put all of Eastern Europe at risk. You put all of our NATO allies there at risk. And then, when a NATO ally is now at risk, now you really risk having to put potential American troops on the ground, which nobody wants to see and shouldn't happen.
But if they're starting to go after NATO allies in Eastern Europe, now that's a much bigger problem. It sends a message to China, who wants to aggressively go after Taiwan, which creates a vast majority of the technology that we need for our everyday lives.
And then that puts our consumers at risk. It puts our manufacturers at risk. It puts our economy at risk if you allow that to happen. So this will hit home very, very quickly. I have heard people say, well, no blank checks. And I agree with that. No blank checks.
We're putting about $50 billion of support in Ukraine. Understand this; $50 billion to not put a single troop on the ground, potentially defeat and decimate the Russian army, that's less than 10 percent of our defense appropriation in just a single year.
I'm the most fiscally conservative governor in the country, and I'm telling you, that's a deal. That's a good effort of backing our play and backing our allies' play across the world.
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No. No.
Look, what you have now is, you have a bank that did not manage their investments well. You have a giant bailout from the federal government. And that's what this is. These are -- as a lot of folks now know, these are big companies with big money in that bank. They should have hedged their investments. They shouldn't have put their employees and their businesses at risk.
But what it really says to all the other banks that are out there is, if you take risky investments, if you don't manage your investments wisely, don't worry, the federal government will back your play. So that actually incentivizes worst management -- worst management,higher risk by other banks down the road, because now we have set this precedent going forward.
So, it was not the right play. It sends the wrong message. If you want to move the FDIC number up from 250,000 to something higher, I have no problem with that, right? If you want to provide some supports, I have no problem.
But this whole idea that we're going to fully -- fully back the play and bail out all these tech companies, it's not right, and it sets a terrible precedent on the macroeconomic scale for this country.
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Well, I guess we're a few days closer, right? I know I probably -- all of us have to make some sort of decision as
we hit the summer months. I'd love to be in a debate, if we actually go down that path. I just think that'd be really fun to kind of get on stage with some of my friends and really have it out and talk about real issues, not just headlines and political stunts and all that, and kind of put each other on the line.
So I think everyone will have to make the decision as we get to summer. So, obviously, we're a little closer there, but our message is really gaining traction. It's about competency-related results, leadership that can bring something to the table, that can work with Republicans, work with Democrats, get immigration reform done, balance budgets, address all of these real serious issues that we have in this country, as opposed to just living in the headlines.
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All right. Thank you, buddy.
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