New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a moderate Republican, said on Sunday that he does not think President-elect Trump has permanently changed the GOP.
“We've always been a spectrum in the party. We've had moderates, we've had fiscal conservatives and social moderates and social conservatives. It's a huge spectrum, and it's a big tent, and it will be, it will continue to be,” Sununu said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” in an interview conducted less than two weeks before he leaves office.
Sununu said he does not imagine someone will take Trump’s place as leader of the GOP after his term is over.
“Trump is Trump. There's no ‘Trump-lite.’ There's no ‘Trump 2.0’ coming up,” Sununu said. “I always say that Trump is who he is because he's built up himself in the American psyche for 40 years. I mean, really since the 80s.”
Asked whether he thinks Trump has permanently changed the party, Sununu said, “Oh, no. Oh, definitely not.”
He suggested that he does not think the party’s fundamental ideology has changed all that much.
“I think there's a lot more of that hardcore regular conservatism already in there, frankly. That traditional conservatism is already in there,” Sununu said when asked whether he thinks the party will “bounce back” to “regular conservatism.”
“He brings a different style to it, which I have a lot of issues with at times, to be sure, but fundamentally, on principle, they're still right there. The bigger DNA problem is with the Democrat party,” Sununu said.
Sununu endorsed former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential primary bid before she suspended her campaign and he threw his support behind Trump.
Asked about some of the criticism he had of Trump during the 2024 primary, Sununu said Trump was “not my first choice, and not my second or third or fourth choice within the primary process, but obviously he won the primary.”
“I never take back a single thing I've ever said. I think, you know, in terms of moving the party forward, there were a lot of other great candidates that were out there. He won the primary, he won the nomination, and he won the vote handily, of the American people. He's got to come through, right? At this point, it's about delivering.”
