New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on Sunday dismissed Republican president nominee Donald Trump’s statement Friday telling people they “won’t have to vote anymore” if they elect him as standard Trump rhetoric.
“I think it was a classic Trumpism if you will,” he said to host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”
Speaking Friday in at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in Florida, the former president said, “Get out and vote just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years it will be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
Trump added: “You’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
Sununu, a Republican, took the word “fixed” to mean that the country could be repaired, rather than future elections to be “fixed” to achieve a certain outcome.
“Obviously we want everybody to vote in all elections, but I think he was just trying to make a hyberbolic point that it can be fixed as long as he gets back into office and all that,” Sununu said.
Trump’s remarks set off alarm bells among progressives who saw them as signs that Trump might not intend to allow future elections should he be elected in November. The Harris campaign responded Saturday: “When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom, she means it.”
Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.) posted the Trump clip on X and said: “The only way ‘you won’t have to vote anymore’ is if Donald Trump becomes a dictator.” And Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said on X: “This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism. Here Trump helpfully reminds us that the alternative is never having the chance to vote again.”
