Former president Donald Trump was critical of New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu during a rally in the Granite State on Thursday, calling the Republican official a “nasty guy.”
Trump attacked Sununu over his decision not to run for U.S. Senate in 2022 against Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan, who instead handily defeated Trump-backed Republican challenger Don Bolduc. Bolduc has endorsed former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley in the 2024 race.
“He could’ve really made an impact,” Trump said of Sununu during a rally in Manchester that drew a crowd of nearly 2,000 people. “He could’ve run for the Senate. He probably would’ve easily won because of the family name, would’ve won. And that would have been a tremendous thing. Instead, he wants to play games with running for president.”
Sununu has hinted at a potential 2024 run for months. Earlier this month, CNN’s Poppy Harlow asked the New Hampshire governor if he wants to be president and he replied, “I think I could do the job.”
When Harlow remarked that that was the closest Sununu had come to declaring a run, he said, “I’m looking at it . . . it’s a big decision for the family, for the process, for the party.”
During that same interview, Sununu criticized Trump, saying he got “very little done, didn’t drain the swamp like he promised, didn’t provide border security like he promised.”
Earlier this week the governor warned that Trump is at risk of becoming a “four-time loser” in 2024, with Republican losses in 2018 and 2022 and Trump’s own personal defeat in 2020.
Meanwhile on Thursday, Trump also took jabs at former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, calling him “sloppy Chris Christie” and noting he has polled around 1 percent in most 2024 polling.
“Which by the way is substantially better than he did seven years ago on the same stage against me right here in New Hampshire,” Trump said. Christie and Trump faced off in the 2016 GOP presidential primary before Christie dropped out and endorsed Trump.
“Got a big mouth — that’s all he’s got,” Trump said of Christie, who was once an ally to the former president but has since become a vocal critic.
Christie said late last month that he is “definitely thinking about running” for president in 2024 and plans to make a decision in the next 60 days.
Last month he commented to the Washington Examiner about Trump: “He told us during that campaign in ’16 that we were going to do so much winning that we would be sick of winning. Yet in 2018, we lost the House; in 2020, we lost the White House and we lost the Senate; and in 2022, we lost more governorships, another seat in the Senate, and historically underperformed in the House.”
“So, I’m tired of losing, and I’m tired of being disappointed. And I think most Republicans are, too. And that argument needs to be made and made directly to the people of our party. And then we’re going to see how they react,” he said.
Trump on Thursday also debuted a new nickname for President Biden: “Crooked Joe Biden.”
“I will be retiring the name ‘crooked’ from Hillary Clinton,” Trump said. “And I’m going to give her a new name — I don’t know, like maybe lovely Hillary or beautiful Hillary — but I’m going to retire the name ‘crooked’ so that we can use the name for Joe Biden, because he’ll be known from now on as Crooked Joe Biden.”
He said there has “never been anyone in the history of American politics so crooked or dishonest as Joe Biden” and called the president “grossly incompetent.”