Transcript of 'Asinine comments': Trump-supporting governor reacts to Trump's Medal of Honor statement

Have you heard her laugh? That is the laugh of a crazy person. As soon as she laughs, the election's over. I'm a better-looking person than Kamala. It was a coup of a President. This was a coup, and they stole the presidency of the United States from him.

Welcome back to the State of the Union, Donald Trump there veering off his economic remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania last night. Joining us now, Trump supporter and the Republican governor of the great state of New Hampshire, Chris Sununa. Governor Sununa, you just heard former President Trump attacking Vice President Harris. Former Governor Nikki Haley, whom you supported for President, had some advice for Trump about the best way to campaign against Harris. Take a listen to that and then take a listen to what Trump said this week.

One thing Republicans have to stop, don't quit whining about her. The campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes. It's not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It's not going to win talking about whether she's dumb. You can't win on those things.

I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her. I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she'll be a terrible president.

Who's right here, Haley or Trump?

Well, it is a Donald Trump in this case. Look, as Nikki probably wouldn't point out because she was the alternative, almost any other Republican candidate would be winning this race by by 10 points. And so the message is very clear. If you stick to the issues, if you stick to what matters, this should be an easy race for Donald Trump. It really should. The delta that you're seeing right now is Trump does better with males by about 10 points. But where this giant shift in August has come is with the female voter. Frank Luntz pointed this out in his polling. He's down 10, 12 points at least with females, and they're going to come out in much bigger numbers than they previously would have if Biden were the candidate. If you talk about these economic issues, if you talk about, remind folks that he's running against the most liberal and most unpopular vice president in history that has now laid out the worst economic plan ever laid out by a Democrat candidate. Even Obama's team is panning this as a disaster for America. She then picked her own vice presidential candidate, which is also one of the most liberal, progressive governors in the country that has huge issues in terms of supporting public safety.

All of these things are lining up for a huge Republican win. He's got deliver. We've all showed him exactly that playbook to do so. If he can get it together in the last 60 days, he can. Remind folks that there, as individuals, they're more important than the government. This Democrat administration, Harris's administration, she's not new to this game. She's been there for almost four years, has really tried to dominate with a big government solution. It hasn't worked. If he sticks to what matters, he sticks to what made this country great, he can be very successful in November.

It sounds like you think it's going to be harder for Trump to beat Vice President Harris than it would have been for him to beat President Biden.

Oh, sure. No, there's no doubt about that because she was able to establish this resurgence, and her team has done a very good job of avoiding the issues, trying to make people believe that she hasn't been there for four years. They've done a very good job of that at the same time capitalizing on Trump's reaction. They knew that the former President can be a very reactionary person. I saw that clip that you just played. Trump Look, I'm entitled to personal attacks. Nobody cares what you're entitled to. Do what you have to do to get the votes and win. This is an election. It's about delivering those votes, talking to those independent voters, especially those moms, those suburban females that typically wouldn't have come out strong for Biden. You got to get them back on the team. There's time to do it because they care about the economy. This whole idea that inflation was driven by price gouging, that's a bunch of nonsense, that the government's going to control prices to solve it. I just heard Hakeem Jeffrey say that her plan is the American way. It's one of the most un-American plans that has ever been proposed.

Free markets, entrepreneurship, competitiveness. Her plan would crush all of that. Let's do those things that got us out of economic slumps in the '80s and in the '60s. We have a record of success doing it the right way, not with government controls.

At an event this week, former President Trump compared giving the presidential Medal of Freedom to top Republican donor, Miriam Adelson, to giving the Medal of Honor to American service members who risked their lives in battle. Take a listen.

It's actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor. That's soldiers. They're either in very bad shape because they've been hit so many times by bullets or they're dead. She gets it, and she's a healthy, beautiful woman. And they're rated equal.

The head of the VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars, said, These asonine comments not only diminish the significance of our nation's highest award for valor, but also crassly characterizes the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty, unquote. Do you agree with the VFW?

Yeah, they were asonine comments. There's no doubt about that. Again, I don't think they're the first asonine comments former President Trump has ever made. I don't think they'll be a game in terms of the election, when you're talking about what it takes for someone to stand up and protect this country, it's uncomparable, I think. It stands alone in its own lane in terms of the honor, especially when you're talking about the Congressional Medal of Honor. What Trump needs to be focusing on, if he ever brings up the military, is what it takes to keep America strong across the world, how to bring world peace in dangerous places like the Ukraine and what's going on in Israel, in the Middle East. These things get solved, if you will, with America's strength. That only happens because of America's brave soldiers and servicemen that are willing to protect and make sure the American way of life is established across the country. Our allies know that they can count on that. To make these types of comparisons is so far afield. I don't think it's going to be politically in terms of moving votes. He said crazy things like this before.

At the end of the day, he's got to just focus on what Americans are feeling, which is the economy, the stresses, the border crisis, the migrant crisis, and he's going to have a great opportunity. They're bringing this thing to Chicago, this Democrat Convention. I mean, Illinois is one of the worst... I'm sorry. With all due respect to JB, why is everyone leaving Illinois and every state around Illinois is gaining population? Why does Chicago still have the reputation it has on safety? It's not good. So that's another opportunity for Republicans to say, This is what the Democrats highlight. We just want Americans to feel safe and have opportunity in their lives.

Quickly, because you've been so critical of Vice President Harris's economic proposals from last week, former President Trump has been floating, sweeping new tariffs if he's elected, up to 20 %. Many economists, as I'm sure you know, say that's going to raise prices for Americans. In North Carolina, he suggested those tariffs could be as high as 20 %. Is a 20 % across the board tariff a good idea, do you think?

Well, look, I'll say this. I think the former President, when he was President, had the right idea with terrorists in terms of ratcheting things up and ratcheting up the negotiations, right? It's the threat of terrorists that really get the rest of the world panicked and start allowing America to capitalize on what they're bringing to the table. So whether that would actually come to fruition or not, I don't know. I don't think so. He used those types of threats in the first administration. We got a better NAFTA deal under former President Trump, NAFTA 2.0, which has been a huge success in a lot of different ways. Now we have to deal with the issue of China, right? That's a real threat, and making sure that not just the jobs are protected in America, but the workers are protected, and we can keep those dollars here instead of this massive trade imbalance. He's willing to talk about it. He's willing to take it on. Kamala Harris doesn't even understand terrorists, to be honest. Kamala does not even understand these international issues. Again, when her economic plan is being panned by even Democrats, everyone's wondering who the heck wrote this thing.

I think that gives everyone in America, every business owner, small and large in America, a lot of pause in terms of what she would bring to the table for the next four years.

Governor Sununi, thanks so much for your time today. I appreciate it.

You bet.