Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has done his best to try to build sympathy for Trump and cast him as the victim ahead of any potential indictments. Sununu made an appearance this Sunday State of the Union on CNN, and host Jake Tapper asked what his reaction was to Trump’s announcement that he expects to be indicted by the Manhattan district attorney next Tuesday.
Sununu immediately tried to downplay the accusations, gain support for Trump from his MAGA base, and claim that the Democrats are somehow responsible for all the leaks that come directly from TrumpWorld, not from the prosecutor or the police.
SUNUNU: I can tell you that I think it creates a lot of sympathy for the former president. I think the fact that I was with — coffee this morning with people, and they’re — none of them were big Trump supporters, but they all said they had the felt like he was under attack.
And, as you pointed out, this is probably some kind of offense on an issue from seven years ago. It has nothing to do with January 6th. There are people who still think it has something to do with January 6th.
So I just think, not just the media, but really a lot of Democrats misinterpreted that, in terms of building sympathy for the former president. And that radically changes the paradigm as we enter the 24 elections.
Just because it has nothing to do with his other crimes around January 6 and trying to overturn the election doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be held accountable for all the other crimes he has committed. Sununu then tried to absolve Trump of any responsibility if his supporters returned to violence and followed his calls to take to the streets before continuing to downplay the charges as a misdemeanor, as opposed to a criminal violation of the finance law. campaigns:
TAPPER: The former president has also called for — quote — “protests” and he’s urging his supporters to — quote — “take back our country.”
Obviously, every American has the constitutional right to protest peacefully, but do you think former President Trump has a special responsibility here to make sure his supporters protest peacefully after what happened on January 6th?
SUNUNU: Well, of course.
Look, if someone’s calling a protest, you always want to make sure they’re peaceful. And we know it will happen. And it has already happened. In the long history, in recent history in America, people are always there to protest what they consider to be a wrongful arrest or a wrongful charge.
But you want to make sure it’s peaceful. We don’t want history to repeat itself too negatively. But — so, it’s going to happen there. And it’s not – you can’t just put it on the former president. It’s our responsibility, okay, in society, in our communities, to make sure that if we have something to say, we do it the right way and to make sure that we have a positive effect on the ‘coming.
But it’s going to be a circus, right? It’s going to be a bit of a political circus. There are going to be a lot of unknowns. As you mentioned, it could be a misdemeanor. It was tried – I believe something similar was tried against Edwards, the former presidential candidate years ago, and came to nothing.
So it’s not tested. There’s a question about why they’re doing it, something seven years ago. It’s not a trifle, but it’s a transfer of money and how he claimed that money was transferred between him and his lawyer. You know, there are other issues that really take precedence in terms of where this country needs to go, what we need to do to get things done, how we manage our budgets, how we secure the border.
There are far more pressing issues of the day. It’s just a shame that it made the headlines.
What is “unfortunate” is that Republicans like Sununu continue to refuse to hold Trump accountable for anything. And this guy is supposed to be one of the “moderates”.
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