Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said on Sunday that a potential 2024 presidential run would be “an opportunity to change things” and put “a little better attitude” in Washington, D.C.
Sununu told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan that the nation’s capital “gives me the chills sometimes.”
“Well, you might need to get over that if you’re gonna run for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., as apparently you are considering doing,” Brennan said.
“Well look, a lot of opportunity to change things, right?” Sununu replied.
“I think New Hampshire has this awesome model of ‘Live Free or Die.’ Limited government, local control, individual responsibility, really putting the voters first. Send them some money, which is nice, but send them the regulatory authority, too. So, a little decentralizing out of Washington, and maybe a little better attitude would be a good thing for America.”
Sununu hasn’t officially announced a 2024 campaign, but has taken recent steps that sparked speculation that he’ll run, including setting up a political action committee, “Live Free or Die,” with its name grabbed from New Hampshire’s motto.
Former President Trump declared his campaign just after last year’s midterms, but Sununu and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have predicted Trump wouldn’t be a match for President Biden if Biden runs for reelection in 2024.
“It drives me crazy when Republicans talk in an echo chamber about, you know, how bad the president is,” Sununu emphasized on Sunday. “You gotta be for something.”
Sununu also said that he won’t be a “culture warrior,” but railed against a “woke cancel culture” of “divisiveness.”
“Where it is me versus you. Where if you are not adhering to my ideals, then I’m going to cancel you out. It is us versus them. It is this binary, where everything’s a war. That’s a cultural problem we have to fix in America and it starts with good leadership, good messaging, more hopeful and optimistic, but government never solves a cultural problem,” the governor said.
His remarks contrast those of Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), who gave the official Republican response to Biden’s State of the Union address last week and said the country is locked in such a war, fighting against the left “woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”