Given Gov. Chris Sununu’s recent media schedule, which has featured dozens of cable news interviews, it’s understandable the details can sometimes be a bit hazy.
”It was on CNN — did you see it? Or it was on some station,” Sununu said last week, trying to recall a particular TV appearance. "It was great."
Sununu’s string of national media hits was perhaps most intense as he mulled a longshot presidential bid through the spring. But they’ve continued even as he announced earlier this month that he won’t run for president and indicated he probably won’t seek another term in Concord. Now, with his career at a turning point — both politically and professionally — Sununu is still working hard to raise his profile through the medium of cable TV.
According to the governor — and backed up by the record — he’s getting steady invitations from TV bookers at outlets that run from ABC to Newsmax. But CNN, where he announced he wouldn’t run for president in 2024, and where he has since made multiple appearances to discuss the indictment of former President Donald Trump, appears particularly eager to have him.
In the days since federal prosecutors indicted former President Donald Trump, Sununu has spoken with Anderson Cooper about what he calls the “politicization” of the Department of Justice; he's stressed the seriousness of the government’s case against Trump with Wolf Blitzer; and he bobbed and weaved as Kaitlan Collins pressed him to say whether, despite his criticism, he’d still for Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.
“Look, I still don’t think he is going to be the nominee," Sununu said. "He could be, but it’s a real hypothetical."
With the possible exception of his prediction that Trump won’t win the Republican nomination, there was nothing remarkable about what Sununu said on any of these shows. But when it comes to cable TV punditry, originality isn’t always the point. The job is often about playing a role — one that Sununu seems eager to audition for.
“I think there is a real appeal of for any Republican who is willing to look at another Republican and either punch them in the nose, or praise them in a way that’s going to define what they can do for Republican voters,” said Tammy Haddad, who runs a Washington-based media consulting firm and spent years as a top producer on cable talk shows for CNN and MSNBC.
Haddad said Sununu stands out among the current crop of Republicans angling for national attention because he doesn’t lean heavily on talking points and comes across on camera as genuine.
“With Chris Sununu, you see a guy — I don’t want to say more thoughtful — but just a better communicator,” Haddad said.
Cable TV — with its ritual combat and perishable takes on whatever is in the headlines — was in fact a key backdrop of Sununu’s youth. At a minimum, TV punditry helped pay the bills when the Sununu family lived in Virginia in the early 1990s. The governor’s father, John H. Sununu, spent several years as a co-host of CNN’s Crossfire after losing his job as White House Chief of Staff for President George H.W. Bush.
The younger Sununu, who often talks of finding the right opportunity for a private sector job, is quick to downplay the possibility of working full-time as a cable TV host.
“I don’t know if I’d be very good at asking the questions,” he said recently.
Even so, expect to see plenty more Sununu on TV. He said he wants to keep his voice prominent during the 2024 Republican presidential primary, and said cable networks appear to be happy to oblige.
“They make it very easy, so it’s not a big deal,” Sununu said last week, noting that these days networks are sending camera crews to his house, rather than expecting him to head to a studio.
“Lord knows I’m never short of words,” he added.
Right now, a word Sununu is saying often is "yes" — to any invitations to appear on TV.
