Former NH Governor Chris Sununu joins! Sununu gives his take on the state of the Patriots. Were the Krafts too reactionary to fans?
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00:00It's him. It is former officially, officially this morning, former governor of New Hampshire,
00:06my governor, governor Sununu yesterday's news. Um, I can barely, I'm lucky you can pronounce
00:11it. You still pronounce my name now. Did you clear out? Do they give you a cardboard boxes?
00:16Do you clear up? They do. Did you clear out the office? I did clear it out a couple of
00:19weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago actually. And then I've been working out of a separate
00:23location so they could get the office ready for the new gov. Yeah. You know, they put
00:26it in a new carpet. We don't do very fancy things, but you know, after eight years,
00:30you know, and all my, all the, the blood spilling in the corner office, they had to bring a
00:33new carpet, make it look nice for Kelly. She's going to miss it. Yeah. There's no doubt it's
00:39I'm, I'm only 50 years old. I've been governor eight years. It's there's unquestionable.
00:44It's unquestionable that this will be the greatest job I've ever had. It hardest job,
00:48most stressful job, but most fulfilling job. And that's weird at 50 cause I still feel
00:51like I got, you know, 30, 40 years in me. Yeah. Well, how about your kids though? I
00:55mean, eight years is a long time. How old, I don't know how old your kids are, but when
00:59you got 18 and 11 and they are very excited that it's all done. So like my little guy
01:03was four when I was sworn into office. So he hasn't really known me as not governors,
01:07but they're all excited that it gets a little more normal and maybe, uh, maybe get another,
01:11a bigger paycheck. Maybe the Christmas presents will get a little bigger under the tree next
01:15year. I don't know. I'll tell you what shots fired by your replacement yesterday. Kelly
01:20Ayotte came right at Massachusetts during her speech and rightly so. Yeah, rightly so.
01:24Yeah. Look, look, Massachusetts and Boston need to be strong and we want them to be great,
01:31but where the dichotomy between the two states right now has never been bigger. The gap has
01:35never been bigger. So we talk about Massachusetts a lot in New Hampshire cause it's like policy
01:40matters. Don't screw this up. Don't take our success for granted. Um, the fiscal crisis
01:45you guys have under, under the layers here that don't maybe hit the headlines is crazy.
01:50The fact that you guys pay 50% more in energy than we do yet. We're all in the same grid.
01:53That's just stupid policy. Wait a minute. Yeah, I could go on. I could get a new balance.
01:58How about across the street? You have this amazing new balance, right? Where are they
02:02building their new factories? None in Massachusetts. They're all going to New Hampshire. Nobody
02:07will invest here between your mayor and your governor. They just, and I think Maura was
02:11dealt a bad hand, but I think your mayor is a complete fool. She's anti-business. She
02:15doesn't want people to make money and be profitable and create jobs. So all the businesses are
02:21losing population, but we're gaining population. Why do we end up, and this is kind of interesting
02:26in light of what's going on in California. Why are we paying 50% more for our energy?
02:31Because you guys create policies based on this environmental stuff based on politics
02:36as opposed to, I always look at the, when we pass a law, what's going to happen to the
02:40rate payer? What's going to happen to the person that turns on the light? What happens
02:43to the bill? Is it going to go down or up? If it goes up, we got a real problem. There's
02:48no sense of that here. So we're all part of the same grid and we have to actually fight
02:53with Massachusetts constantly to make sure that we're not paying for your legislation.
02:57So it's, it's all in new England's tied together, but we all have different rates because of
03:01the politics. And look, if you're in a fixed income, if you're elderly, you got to like
03:06rich people of Boston can afford the high rates when they turn on the lights, but an
03:10elderly person can't, why should their bill go from 150 to 225 bucks a month or whatever
03:14it is. So little crap like that does matter. So all Kelly was doing yesterday was saying,
03:20Hey, don't take for success for granted. You got to work hard. We got to be disciplined.
03:24We don't have taxes. They do. Right. Why do they have taxes? Cause they have to draw more
03:28money out of more people because of all the waste they have. We don't want to have that
03:31waste. So yeah, I don't want to get into it too much, but it's her, her low, her slogan
03:35for her, her campaign was don't, it's New Hampshire. Don't mass it up. I mean, that's
03:40what we say here. Don't mess it up. And guess what? She won over women. We are some other
03:46state slogan, right? And look, we're all family here in new England. It's like, you know,
03:51for years, man, Massachusetts was the big brother that everyone kind of leaned on, but
03:55it's just not going in the right direction. And I, it can be fixed, but you gotta, you
04:01gotta make the right decisions and bring in the right leadership. But anyway, I'm out
04:04of this game now. I'm now, I love being a punchline. It's probably my greatest strength,
04:10but, um, gov, I just am curious about where we are in fact heading as a state city of
04:17Boston real estate taxes. Mine went up 30% from the last, last time I had it. It's a
04:23simple math equation where if you're losing residents, you have to charge the people that
04:27stay more to get the same income. Is there any way this turns around? Is there any normalcy
04:32are people like what, what are people, what can people do? So I'm not saying it's all
04:37about the politicians, but when you elect good people and not just the governor, but
04:40you need a legislature that says, okay, we need some fiscal discipline here because we're
04:43not getting the results.
04:44Businesses are leaving. People are leaving your population actually increased. It's number
04:49four when it comes to states where people are leaving to go elsewhere. Yes, but you're
04:54one of the highest, your population increased. You know why? Because you took a quarter million
04:58migrants in the past four years. That's doubling the size of Worcester guys just with migrants
05:03and they all cost money. So you're increasing population for the wrong reasons and putting
05:08a lot of burden. And again, rich people can handle it, but middle middle income people
05:12can't and they can't, their kids can't live here. That, that sucks. There's a housing
05:16crisis everywhere in New Hampshire too. You know, we own that, but, um, but people want
05:20to move there. We have an influx of my, uh, a migration influx into New Hampshire as opposed
05:25to out. So you just want to be always be trending in the right direction and make sure that
05:29you're not just playing politics to get reelected.
05:31Who cares about getting reelected? If you do the right thing, you'll get reelected,
05:34right? Running a state as you did for eight years, when you look at, and we were talking
05:39about this during the news and, and I don't know enough about it, so maybe you do. When
05:43you look at California and the, uh, unavailability of water, what is, so, so yeah, so here's
05:52again, is it Gavin Newsom's fault that there's actually no water in that moment? Not really,
05:57but this isn't the first time this happened. So when the first wildfires were really going
06:02crazy six, eight years ago, and they've had major ones every other year for a while, he
06:06should have created a system that said, okay, every year, every locality is going to do
06:09an asset, you know, asset management. Do you have water? Are your hydrants working? Do
06:13you have trucks? Do you have people, employees, you're going to report that up to the state
06:17and then where there's gaps, we'll help you fill. There's no, there's no checks and balance,
06:20right? And that's what a governor, that's what leadership is supposed to do. Make sure
06:23all the cities and towns, he doesn't run the cities and towns. He doesn't put the water
06:28it's his job to make sure that the system is functionally working. There's no question about
06:32that, but he's off worrying about how he's going to run for president. So yeah, it's really bad
06:37management up, up and down the line. And you saw, you guys talked about all the water that was being
06:41dumped into the ocean because for 20 years, while they had droughts, they didn't build storage
06:46capacity. They didn't, they could have been storing that water. They could have created reservoirs,
06:50but they're worrying about the smell. They're worrying about this. They're, they're in a,
06:53when you're in a fiscal crisis, there's no money to build a storage capacity. So
06:57manage your fiscal house. So when a crisis hits, you can react. But also should it, shouldn't he
07:01have kept Karen Bass in, in line when it comes to cutting the budget of the fire department?
07:07He can't, the governor can't do that, right? That's a, that's a city thing that the voters
07:11should and the fire department should have and all that. But again, it's, it's more, I really
07:15think from a statewide perspective, because by the way, whether this happened in LA or one of
07:19the other Southern counties, it was like, they're not the only ones without water, right? It's,
07:23it's really a Southern California crisis that hasn't been managed in the name of environmental
07:28protection and all this other stuff. And we want to protect the environment. I'm an environmental
07:31engineer, went to MIT, and I care very much about that, but you got to have, you know,
07:35you got to look at both sides of the equation. And they, they knew these fires were coming
07:39because they have come and come and they lost about a hundred people in the last major fire
07:43a few years ago. And you think that wouldn't have been a wake-up call about let's, or force
07:47management, you know, get the scrub brush out, all the dead stuff out, manage your forest. You know,
07:52we do that here and for whatever reason they don't. And what's the answer when, when that poor
07:57woman was, you know, confronting him and that's a tough position for Gavin. I get it. When someone's
08:01that emotional, would you have reacted differently? I'm going to let me call the president and see
08:05what he can do. That's the dumbest thing you could ever say to someone. Like it's not your job.
08:10In the beginning, he actually said, I'm on the phone. He won't pick up my call. Gavin Newsom,
08:14Biden won't pick up your call. I get maybe Biden can't find the phone. He just hears it
08:19ringing. He said there was no service. It's nonsense. And so he doesn't know how to handle
08:24those things very well. And Gavin and I don't really see eye to eye. What are you going to,
08:29what are you going to do now? And I'm, I'm really, I'm not make money. Yeah. Yeah. Private equity.
08:35Right. So all your rich private equity guys in downtown Boston listening, uh, you know,
08:39you want, you want us to help you get a job? Well, I can, I'm actually allowed to actually
08:43look for that. Now you have all these, these rich friends. You can get me something. Right.
08:46I don't, I don't want to get involved, but, um, we probably have somebody listening right now.
08:52So you want to, you want to, I'm looking, I'll probably do a bread basket of things. I'm going
08:55to get involved with private equity. I'll probably sit on some boards and help some
08:59I guarantee you there's a private equity person listening right now who would give you an
09:03interview. Please call. We'll set it up. Yeah. All right, go ahead. What else? John Curtis.
09:08No, look, I mean, there'll be a variety of things that I'm looking to do. I'm a,
09:11I have to keep my political itch scratched, so to say. So I'll probably be in the media
09:15in some form. I'm talking to a bunch of folks that have come to me and asked me to do shows
09:19or something like that. So that's interesting. What do you think about this? Joy and Sununu.
09:25Start a podcast. Everyone's starting a podcast. Would it be CNN that you would go to? No, no.
09:30Like I'm talking to everybody. It could be CNN, but I'm talking to everybody. Everybody's kind
09:34of coming in and talking and that probably won't happen for a few months, but I like that. I like
09:38being out there. You know, I'll be on Fox later. Uh, today I'll be on CNN a little bit this week.
09:43I'll just do that for free for a while, just until I really land somewhere and do something.
09:47I love you ever run for president, not planning on it, not planning on running. I mean, look,
09:51I'm only 50, right? So definitely not planning in the next five, five or 10 years of running or
09:57anything like that, but I'll be helpful. I've talked, we've been working with the Trump
10:00administration a little bit, giving them some ideas and helping them or when the first of the
10:03nation primary comes back, you were famously on record. You weren't a Trump guy. Yeah. Well,
10:08yeah, it was a big Nikki Haley guy. Yes. Change your mind that he's a, now that he's the president.
10:12I still think Nikki would have been a far better candidate. I mean, I think he was the 12th best
10:16candidate out of 12, but, uh, far better than Kamala. Of course, elections are about choices.
10:21I mean, at the end of the day, you got to vote for someone. And Kamala was obviously
10:24going to be a disaster. Was it interesting to you? I know you were at the inauguration of your
10:28successor yesterday, but was it interesting to you? Courtney brought it up as her lead
10:33this morning at six 40 or whenever we got home, um, uh, about, uh, president, uh, Trump,
10:42Trump and Obama and president Obama looking very jovial and having fun and chatting at,
10:47at Jimmy Carter's funeral. Yeah. Well, it does. If, if I don't mean to be the insider,
10:52but from my perspective, not surprising at all. I mean, the presence for the most part,
10:55get along the, the governors get along, right. They've been there. It's it's,
10:59if you're at that level and you're holding grudges, I mean, there's something really,
11:02really wrong. Clearly. So Biden and Kamala have frostier than the casket, as they said.
11:11Oh, they hate each other. I don't think they've liked each other for, for 18 months. Yeah. And
11:15I don't mind telling I'm not governor. I'll just tell you, I think Jill Biden has always despised
11:19Kamala for what Kamala did to Joe, the 2019 debate. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.
11:24And the original debate when Kamala was basically calling Joe Biden a racist and misogynist and all
11:29that sort of thing. I don't think Jill ever forgave her for that. He brought Kamala on board
11:33for political reasons, uh, for the woke reasons, if you will. Um, definitely not for the experience
11:38because she had no experience and she turned out to be a disastrous candidate after she pushed him
11:42out. So there's, there's some, and I think Biden is also still, they're still pretty upset with the
11:47Obamas, frankly, because Obama and Pelosi made that call to push him out of the race. And that's
11:52going to be the poor guy's legacy that he was pushed. It wasn't even given a shot to defend
11:56himself. She was like the male of the politics world. Yeah, I'm a, yeah, I'm pro Gerard by the
12:03way. Yeah. Look, I'm a craft boy. As a lot of people know, I love the crafts. I think what
12:07they've done over the last three years is amazing. I love Jonathan. I love, but you don't fire a
12:12coach in the first year because the worst thing about it is to these long interviews. Why was
12:18that interview five hours with Vrabel? Cause if I'm Vrabel, I'm like, okay, you can't do to me
12:23what happened to him because right. Belichick had a crappy record. Mayo had a crappy record. It's
12:28the talent on the field more than anything. Wolf is the problem. I have no question. No, there's
12:33no doubt about that. So yeah. I think the point you guys are making this morning, if you're coming
12:37in, if I were coming in as governor and I can't bring my team in, it's not going to work. Right?
12:42So Vrabel has to come in and say, we're cleaning house and structurally building for the longterm.
12:46Yeah. As long as you're revealing secrets, what's going on with the drone?
12:50That was good. I was just going to, I need to know. It's none of your business.
12:55Honestly, I've talked to, look, I've talked to Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey when they
12:59were all coming over. We're not being told it's, it's, it's the feds. Um, they're, they're not
13:04telling the governors a whole lot. It's not another country. I don't believe so. No, no,
13:09it's not aliens. No, it's our own government. I do believe. Absolutely. It's our own government.
13:14They're, they're either using it for testing. They're researching something. They're using it
13:18for monitoring. We're not a hundred percent sure, but I can honestly tell you, we've all asked the
13:22question. We've all been on the front lines and we've all gotten the same non-answer.
13:26Have you seen them in New Hampshire? Not really. No, no, nothing that couldn't be explained or
13:31followed up. Let me ask this question. Cause you were talking about what the governor of California
13:36didn't do and how you'd fix things. And, and it seems like even when we talked to, uh, governor
13:42Haley, like, it seems like you guys are very smart people. There's a lot of common sense.
13:47You say all these things, but why is it that they don't then do them?
13:54Uh, okay. So a lot of folks focus on the politics of the situation, not on the operations.
14:01If you're a Congressman or a Senator, you can do policy and where we should put some funding,
14:05but you don't have to create anything. You don't have to operate. Governors have to operate. They
14:09have to be 24 seven emergency management on top of it. And you have to create systems of
14:14accountability. So like I said, Gavin's job is not to put out the fire, but to ensure that the
14:18systems are in place. So if the crisis happens and there's a thousand things, other crises that
14:22could happen that we're not talking about today that he also has to manage. So you'd like to hope
14:26that that's there. Why don't they do it? Um, they have such big teams. They're, they're probably
14:32shielded, especially in a place like California through such layers of bureaucracy, even here in
14:35Massachusetts. I mean, the layers of staff you have to go through to get anything done here.
14:39So they shield themselves. And the inner circle is more concerned about politics
14:44than the outer circle, which is worried about operations, but can never get to the decision
14:48maker. But you would think the big things like water crisis, like you talked about in California,
14:54where there's been a history of wildfires, whether it's in Florida, when it's in Florida,
15:00it comes to hurricanes. You would think like hair with the housing and the cost of living.
15:06You know, when it costs to buy a house or rent, you would think like those big things,
15:09they would say, okay, let's fix those problems. And look, let's look at examples that work. Look,
15:15let's give DeSantis credit when that hurricane hit and that bridge went down, right? I think
15:20it was in 22. Uh, they said it would take 18 months to put that, that Island back together
15:26in two weeks. He had a bridge up and going. So it can work if you have the right mentality and
15:31you're trying, you surround yourself with operational people. And as the governor,
15:34you gotta be on the ground, not on the ground, getting your picture taken,
15:37but like on the ground, talking to the actual firefighter that is holding the hose.
15:41And there's a great corollary to this and the Patriots where I think the Patriots became
15:45politicians in the absence of bill Belichick. And we're very interested in getting praise
15:51for doing things instead of simply concerning themselves with winning or succeeding in a crisis
15:57because nothing else matters. If you win, people will love you. If you don't win,
16:00nobody cares how you hired your coach. So can I, can I take a different,
16:03different tack on it? And I might be wrong. I think the crafts are such fans. I've sat in
16:09that box with them many times, Jonathan craft and Robert craft to yell at the field. Like anybody,
16:14I love that by the way, they get ticked off at play calls. They get either. They get,
16:17they get so excited on every touchdown. I mean, there's a lot of emotion there.
16:21So as fans, what are we're reactionary. And especially being from Boston, you're not winning
16:25change the team, right? Look at, look at what the Bruins did for God's sakes. I think I had 120
16:31wins, 40 losses, and he was out after 20 games. Like it's because Wyman couldn't, couldn't stop
16:36a goal. So I just think they're actually fans. And we're a little bit reactionary in this point
16:41that, Oh, we better do something to get the fans on board to sell some tickets. Cause we need
16:45something changed today. And as opposed to going back and being like, Hey, remember in the summer,
16:49we said it was a rebuilding year. The over under on wins was four, four and a half on draft Kings.
16:54So from that respect, and there's not a lot of talent there,
16:58the drafted talent isn't panning out over the past few years. So I think they were,
17:02I might, this is just my take. I think the crafts were a little more reactionary in this
17:06as a fan in this case, then really strategic about it. Well, I'm sad that I love them. I'm
17:12sad that we have to say goodbye, but do we never say goodbye. The beer chug will live on when it
17:22comes to my memories of things that have happened on this show, the beer chug that followed the 17
17:27shots of Corvus vodka. We are going to be in New Hampshire for the next snow show,
17:36which is January 24th at Loon mountain. I'll be there whether you want me or not.
17:42We're going to be at South peak. Could we do one? Could we pour one out for your governorship?
17:47Could we do one final if you want to keep it to one? Sure. I'll probably hang out with a few
17:51several beers. I mean, it is dry January. I don't know if I is, is January 24th. Okay.
17:59I'm doing dry January. It's going pretty good. I mean, I'm only eight days in,
18:02but I feel pretty good. Have you lost any weight? No, no, I've gained.
18:07Somehow he's not drinking and he tells us he's having cranberry Walnut salad. I'm eating my
18:11feelings. Um, but yeah. All right. So will you come to Loon and we can say a proper farewell.
18:17And I bet, uh, all the New Hampshire people who like you, it's probably half of them.
18:22Uh, they will all come out and, and if I, if I have a job by then I'll buy the beer,
18:26but I'm officially unemployed right now. Somebody listening who wants to give you a job. Are you up
18:32for anything? Oh no, I really am. I'm up for anything like customer service. I didn't come
18:36on. I didn't come on to show my resume by the way, but it's okay. He wants to make money though.
18:41Walmart customer, like the door greeter. How do they get ahold of you? If somebody wants to give
18:46you a job, should they just reach out to us and we'll make the connection? Great question. What
18:49the best way? Uh, do I give out an email or cell phone to hear on there? No, probably not. But all
18:55those cell phones, I think on the, but us, if somebody wants to, I'm not a hard guy to find,
18:59drive to drive to New Hampshire, put down your car window, yell, Hey Sununu. And I'll probably pop
19:03up within about 20, 30 minutes. You were always great to us here. We had a lot of fun. I will say
19:09that there aren't many governors and maybe there, there's not a single other one who would do 17
19:15shots of Corvus with us. And then beer truck. Well, especially when Ty Law's looking at you
19:19going, can I tell you a quick Ty Law story? Yeah. So he calls me and I love him. I love Ty Law and
19:23I really enjoy Corvus by the way. He calls. He's like, so, um, uh, would, would the state of
19:29New Hampshire buy 500 cases of Corvus? And I'm like, I don't know about that, Ty. We've run the
19:34liquor stores, but I don't know. Is that a lot? I can't tell. So I called my guys. I said, is that
19:38a lot? They said, we've never bought 500, but I said, they said the sales are going great by the
19:43way. They said, if he's just patient, we're selling, it's getting bigger every day.
19:52I mean, really how many bottles in a case, but it's Ty Law. So needless to say,
19:56my garage right now is filled to the brim side hustle. Sell those, sell those like,
20:04you know, on the corner or something, you know, get a little bit of money.
20:07You're the best. Thank you guys. You will always be my governor. I appreciate it.
20:11At least some, somebody's former governor Sununu.