New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said he does not think President-elect Donald Trump has permanently changed the GOP.
Sununu, a moderate Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning that 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,” he 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.”
When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if he thinks Trump has permanently changed the party, Sununu replied, “Oh, no. Oh, definitely not.”
“We’ve always been a spectrum in the party,” he added. “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 added that Republicans are now more “hardcore” conservatives than the traditional conservatism of the past.
“I think there’s a lot more of that hardcore regular conservatism already in there, frankly,” he said. “That traditional conservatism is already in there.”
When it comes to Trump, Sununu said the president-elect “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 added.
Sununu, who supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primary, said during the interview Sunday that 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,” he added. “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.”
After serving four terms, Sununu will leave office on January 2.
