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In case you missed it, conservative Boston radio host Jeff Kuhner last week slammed Sununu as “a gutless coward,” who is“destroying his support among his base,” and he said that “Sununu is dead to me.”
Listen to Kuhner’s rant against Sununu here.
It is just the latest example of how Sununu is more politically isolated than at any time in his career — with his anti-public health and anti-choice agenda alienating Independents even while he faces a revolt from his own Republican base.
Sununu has tried to have it both ways on commonsense vaccine requirements — and utterly failed. In September, Sununu promised to sue the Biden administration over vaccine requirements. But, Sununu’s words against the Biden administration have come back to haunt him — and only served to radicalize his base against him. Conservatives have protested Sununu three different times and demanded that he do more to oppose commonsense vaccine and testing requirements. And Sununu’s Republican allies on the Executive Council voted down $27 million in federal funding to increase vaccinations in the state — making New Hampshire the only state in the country to reject federal vaccine funding.
The revolt on his right and his sliding approval among independents have emerged as a major political challenge for Sununu as he prepares a likely run for the US Senate. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Sununu and his party “have struggled to unify around a common position since the pandemic first emerged” — and that Sununu’s opposition to vaccine requirements has only further isolated him from moderate voters without helping his standing with his increasingly anti-vaccination base.
Read excerpts from the interview below:
Jeff Kuhner: Maria in New Hampshire, thanks for holding Maria and welcome.
Caller (Maria) [00:00:06] Hi, Joe. Hi. The official word that came out of Sununu office is, yes, this is the live, free or die state. And you are free to find another job. That's that’s the solution, and Sununu said you're calling Biden, what he's doing, tyranny and you want me to do the same thing, I'm not going to force private employers to do what I want them to do.
Jeff Kuhner [00:00:42] Yeah. No, I know Sununu made that argument at his Executive Council meeting as well. In fact, he's so stupid. He called it communism. One person you know, one person said, Oh, that's socialism. He says, No, no, that's not socialism. That's literally communism. And I wish I was there because I would have said, excuse me, governor, as someone whose parents and grandparents directly experienced communism, you don't know what you're talking about. You know what communism is, is when the government comes in. He was talking about a flower shop and takes over the flower shop. They own the flower shop. They nationalized the flower shop. That's communism. Stupid.
Caller (Maria) [00:01:28] We weren't allowed to talk. That was the whole thing.
Jeff Kuhner [00:01:36] If you move the wrong way, you look the wrong way. You had protested at other events. That's when he sicced his cops, his little Gestapo thugs and started arresting people left, right and center. That's by the way, that's communism.
Caller (Maria) [00:01:52] Yes. And we've been to every rally, every meeting and there. And he refuses to come out and speak to us.
Jeff Kuhner [00:02:04] And I'll tell you why, Maria, because he's a gutless coward, because he can't defend the indefensible. You see first, he said nobody was getting fired over the vaccine. that there wasn't a vaccine mandate in New Hampshire. He lied. So then he shifts grounds and he says, Well, if somebody in the private sector wants to mandate a vaccine? Well, who's forcing them to mandate the vaccine? It's Biden's federal vaccine mandate. So why don't you stand up for the rights of your citizens who are now going to lose their jobs and their livelihood? So let me get this. According to him, DeSantis is now a communist. Governor Greg Abbott in Texas is a communist. Donald Trump is a communist. Rand Paul is a communist. Everybody who opposes these vaccine mandates, suddenly now they're Jeff Kuhner. Think about how insane this guy is now. I'm a communist. According to Gov. Sununu, he's a moron. He's a moron because, Maria, he doesn't have the guts, the courage to stand up, and he thinks he's going to run against Maggie Hassan in 2022. So what he's doing is he's putting his finger up in the wind and he says, Let me position myself as a moderate and this will make me seem moderate and what he doesn't realize is he's destroying his support among his base. Because as far as I'm concerned, Sununu is dead to me.
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