Governor Chris Sununu: Planting The Seeds
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. We've got some good stuff to talk about. Really, really excited about this one because I'm going to give a little thought and perspective on the news. I'm going to highlight the stupid because there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. And then we're going to phone a friend. This time we're going to call Governor Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire.

He made a fascinating decision not to run for the United States Senate, but to run again to be the governor of New Hampshire. You know his dad. His dad was governor of New Hampshire and the former chief of staff to George H.W. Bush. Fascinating family. We're going to learn a lot more and just hear the story about Chris Sununu and his

How is it that he is just persevered and excelled and how he's become such one of the most incredibly popular governors in the country and what that family is doing. So look forward to calling him. But first, let's talk a little bit about the news.

So there's a lot happening. Every hour, it seems things are moving on the front with the Ukraine movement with the president, movement with the president of Ukraine. There's just a lot of moving parts in every hour that's going on. While that's happening, the rest of the world is also marching on. And I really wanted to highlight this idea of school choice and the ability of parents to be able to make decisions as to where their student is attending their schools.

It is absolutely fascinating to me that there is a political party out there that says, no, there shouldn't be school choice. We don't want you to choose because, oh, that would harm public schools. Well, if public schools were fulfilling all the needs that needed to be filled, then you wouldn't have people who felt like they needed to be able to make a choice to go somewhere else. I think this is one of the big sleeping issues of the 22 election and the 24 election.

Because not only because of school choice and the principles that it represents, but you have a lot of people who are going to vote based on their ability to get their kids a good quality education. When you have crime that is so rampant, and that rampant crime, particularly in the inner cities,

extends itself out into the schools, there's nothing worse than a parent to sending your child to school, give them their backpack, maybe make their school lunch or give them a little school money to some money to get some school lunch, or maybe you can't even afford school lunch. But you go off to school and you know what? Are you worried that your child is going to be safe and be able to return? And some of the policies out there to get rid of these police officers and the resource officers within the schools are

That scares me. And it's got to I don't even have a child who's in one of those types of schools. You couple that with how masks mask mandates COVID were dealt with, even when the president of the United States at the State of the Union with Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Harris right behind him.

were able to take off their masks, not have to deal with masks in that situation in Congress. Because remember, the science supposedly changed literally 24 hours before the State of the Union. And you saw all those members of Congress, nobody having to wear the masks. And then you go back and you hear, still today, there are schools that are mandating young children wear their masks. They're letting some of the older kids not wear their masks.

But the younger kids have to. I got to believe that parents out there are going to be looking at that saying, "I have to have a choice to get my kid out of that school. I can't afford a private school. It's ridiculously expensive." But the candidate that comes before them and says, "I advocate that you get a voucher or that you have some school choice so that you can get your kid in the very best situation for their very best education and learning."

I think those candidates are going to prevail. And so while we have to talk about war, we have to talk about what's going on in Europe, and we have to talk about what's going on with Vladimir Putin and Russia and all of that.

and China and all these other national and international problems, I think at the local level, inflation, crime, immigration, these are the types of things that are going to help drive the election. And there is a clear choice between the two parties. And it'd be fascinating to see how both parties make those types of decisions.

All right. So that's my take on the news, that that is a big part of the news that's not being reported, but is going to affect every family and consequently going to affect how people feel about their election and going to help sway in 22 and 24. All right. Now it's time to bring on the stupid because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere.

All right, I'm going to go to a Ted Cruz tweet because Ted Cruz actually pointed out the stupid. And he was forwarding somebody else's tweet, and I can't remember the guy's name. But it had a picture of the new box of Lando Lakes.

Land O' Lakes makes some of the best butter out there. I know, I've consumed it over a long period of time. Can you picture that yellow box? Can you picture that beautiful scenery? And it had a beautiful Indian or Native American right there on the box.

Well, not only did they take off the Native American or the Indian, but they left the beautiful scenery. So I think they're hoping the consumers will look at that and say, it looks a little different, but I can't remember why. The tweet that I saw was, in order to be woke, in order to be politically correct, by taking off the Native American, it says, this tweet, not mine, but somebody else's tweet said, they literally removed the Indian and kept the land. All right. Yeah.

That was a really stupid move. I don't understand why highlighting the Native American heritage and highlighting that on a consumer product

is anything but a form of recognition and a form of compliment. I mean, if you're an athlete, what do you try to do? You try to be the best athlete you could possibly be, so maybe someday you can be on that Wheaties box. Like, it's not done in a derogatory tone in any way, shape, or form other than to remember and invoke a positive image. They're building a brand about butter. They want good things. They want you to think good things about that butter.

I would suggest remembering and thinking about Native American heritage is a good thing, but I thought it was kind of almost comical the way they said. They literally removed the Indian and kept the land.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much like what maybe happened over a couple hundred years ago. A real problem. And I just thought it was pretty stupid. All right, next one. This one's not really stupid. I thought it was funny. And I got to paint a picture here for you because the video and the still shots, which I saw...

was far better than anything that I'm going to be able to do justice from. This came from our friends over at TMZ. TMZ, their website there, evidently down in Australia, Brisbane to be exact. The Deputy Prime Minister, Stephen Miles, he was giving a speech. And, you know, it's...

Australia's pretty rural. Well, when you're out in Brisbane, beautiful, one of the most beautiful parts of the world. He's standing underneath a tree giving this little speech. And he had an interpreter, you know, the sign language interpreter who was signing so that, you know, everybody could participate in his speech. And they were broadcasting this.

And he was giving this speech about the recent flooding. There's a lot of flooding evidently going on up there, and it was really bad. And all of a sudden, evidently, there was an owl directly above the interpreter, and the owl decided to kind of do his business, dropped all over the shoulder and front part of this poor person's... And you know what is so great about this? The attitude, it just started laughing because all of a sudden, next thing you know, this guy had this big piece of...

pass through through the owl and all of a sudden and they are all just laughing and smiling like alright we're all been there it didn't take themselves too seriously it's not really stupid but I did think it was funny and I did think it was worthwhile and I do think the deputy premier Stephen Miles and his interpreter did a really good job of dealing with it and that falls in the category of funny not so stupid but pretty funny music

All right. Now it's time to phone a friend. And I've had the chance and the opportunity to get to know this person a little bit through the years, the world of politics. I've known his dad, the former governor of New Hampshire.

But now the one who served as the chief of staff to President Bush. But now his son is going to be running for, I believe it's his fourth term. They serve different terms up in New Hampshire where you only serve for two years at a time. One of two states to do so. But looking forward to calling Governor Chris Sununu the governor of New Hampshire. Let's call him up.

Hello. Governor, this is Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. I tell you, I don't pick up my phone all the time, but for you, my friend, anytime. How you been? Well, hey, thank you so much. You know, I've had the honor, pleasure to kind of get to know you a little bit along the way. Came visit you there in the governor's office with my wife, Julie, and seeing you about. And you got a great reputation, and I'm glad to have you join us today on the podcast.

I'm honored you would even invite me. I mean, nowadays in this hot political world, you just never know the hows and whys that you're being invited. I'll take any invitation I can get. So I think it's great. You're an exceptionally nice guy, and you come from a rich tradition of public service. And gosh, your dad's participated, brothers, right? I mean, you got this like Sununu, politics, New Hampshire. I mean, you guys are everywhere.

- Well, we are, you know, people think that, oh boy, you're from this giant political family. And look, my dad served obviously as not just the governor, but then the White House Chief of Staff. My brother was a Congressman and a US Senator. And there's me, but you know, as governor, but people forget I'm number seven of eight kids. So there was 10 of us growing up, three of us chose politics.

Frankly, so in New Hampshire, that's like below the curve. That's hard for the course. If that, everybody runs for office in New Hampshire. Everyone's on the local school board, the select board. We have 400 members of our House of Representatives. It's really a volunteer legislature. So, no, that's just part of more of what New Hampshire is all about. But, yeah, given the background, obviously,

I don't want to say I have to work to separate myself. I think people that I'm a little bit different, you know, we all kind of carry things a little bit different in terms of both policy and personality than my brother and my dad. But, but no, that's just kind of the way we roll up here in New Hampshire. I mean, that's ties into the whole first in the nation primary have a very, very unique system and all of that. So, but it's been great. It's really been great. I learned a lot from those guys.

So let's go back growing up because, yeah, when you're in the younger half of the class growing up, does that make life easier? Does it make it harder? Do you have to like fight for the cereal in the morning? What was life like growing up with that many kids in the house? Yeah, it's a good point. So I'm number seven of eight. The first six were pretty close and there's a kind of a gap to me and a gap to my little brother. So a couple of things. By the time you get to number seven, like,

you're not the baby of the family. So you don't get the attention there. The first six have really, you know, your parents are just like, yeah, do we have a number seven, whatever? And that's fine. So if anything, I flew under the radar a lot. Um, and the downside of that is, you know, in a family of eight kids, you're always kind of fighting for a little bit of attention, but after a while you realize that that doesn't really matter anyway. So the benefit was I got to fly under the radar, right? There's goods and bads to that. By the time I came around, um,

And, you know, there was my mom wasn't, I mean, she cooked dinner every night and all that. And that was really nice. We had a great, great home life growing up. But, you know, my brothers and sisters, like couldn't wear jeans to school, like back in the late 70s and early 80s. They couldn't do that. And by the time I, you know, was going to high school, my parents weren't even awake. You know, my dad was gone and my mom wasn't even awake in the morning type thing. So, you know, we just there was a lot more flexibility. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. A lot more flexibility growing up kind of on the later side of things.

And, but you know, you don't necessarily get a ton of attention, but that's okay. You kind of, you know, you kind of make your own way. So what was your, like, what was, when you talk about Chris, little Chris, before you were the governor and all that, Chris growing up. You know what they called me? They didn't call me Chris. You know what they called me? No. Yeah. My family called me Chris.

Like F-U-R? P-H-E-R, I guess. I don't know. I don't know if anyone ever spelt it. But yeah, no one else. I don't know if I've ever even talked about this, frankly. But yeah, growing up, my family called me Fur. So when you're talking about fur, yeah, what was fur like growing up? I don't know.

I mean, what was your niche? Were you into sports? Were you like a skateboarder? Were you like Pokemon cards? Like what were you doing? I wasn't. Yeah, I was a little I'm 47. So I was I was into sports. I played baseball and soccer growing up. I was very outdoorsy. We were very outdoorsy family. But at the same time, being seven of eight kids, the television was also the babysitter when the sun went down.

So it was like outside playing all day. When you come in at night, you know, we watched a lot of TV and growing up, you know, my mom and dad, you know, love sitting around the TV and watching television with us and stuff. So that's, that was kind of our, our thing as a family, we were very much a skiing family, right? So we're,

We love to ski together on the weekends. New Hampshire is a big skiing state, obviously. My dad was really the first true skiing governor and would go pretty much every weekend, would go somewhere across the state to ski and help promote tourism and all that sort of thing. So yeah, I was pretty, I wasn't like, I was never the best on the team or anything like that, but because of my brothers and sisters, they were all very active in sports. And so I kind of found my niche there. I probably did a lot of the same sports they did. And then when I eventually, you know,

I was a little different because I grew up, you know, in New Hampshire and Salem, New Hampshire, going to public schools here. And then in the high school years was a little different. All my brothers and sisters went to Salem High. You know, it was a big deal, you know, growing up in our town. It's a great high school. And then in those four years, I actually, that's when my dad became the White House Chief of Staff. And so I actually had to move to Washington. So

Maybe that's where my bitterness towards D.C. comes a little bit, because between the age of 14 and 18, I spent four years in D.C. before coming back and going to the college in Boston at MIT. So, yeah, I was just I was just in northern Virginia. I was a went to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the magnet school there kind of high school for for geeks and nerds. But it was awesome. I mean, it was really a great opportunity. But yeah, so I didn't kind of follow the exact path.

because I kind of got pulled out of that. And that was pretty tough. You know, one day,

You know, your parents are like, by the way, we're moving to Washington. And you're like, wait, what? Like we're from Salem. Like, we don't do that. This is New Hampshire. Are you serious? And, you know, it was a great opportunity for my dad. He did a great job and all that. But it was very hard. And it was just me and my younger brother that went down there. So we went from this family of 10, right, in Salem to a family of four, basically, my mom, my dad, me and my younger brother, because everyone else at the time was off in college or beyond.

And so that was kind of almost like a second family, if you will. It was my main family, but it was just a very, very different lifestyle just to come home to this little nuclear family of four. Well, yeah, and dad could not have been home much. I mean, you're the chief of staff to the president of the United States. That's not an eight to five job. That's 24 to seven.

Yeah, yeah. I remember the day he came home and he, you know, it was pretty late. I said, what is going on? You know, the invasion, they were talking about the invasion into, I don't remember if Hussein had gone into Kuwait just yet. But he looked at me, he said, yeah, I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna have to go to war. And I'm like, wow. And that is a kid, a 14 year old kid, you grew up, you're like, yeah, you know, the Vietnam War was like this really...

ended so terribly and all of that. And you kind of grow up with that in the background. And you're like, yeah, you know, the first time when your dad has is kind of a decision maker in a lot of this. And he tells you that's happening. That's kind of surprising. But the reason I bring that up is it really hit home. I'm like, wow, you know,

he actually, he actually does stuff at that white house. Well, let's go back. Yeah. So when you're for, and you're, what did you think like early on in your life? What did you think for, what was first perception of what does dad do for a living? Because to try to explain politics to maybe somebody who's like six or seven, and then as they grow into it, yes. Okay. It makes more and more sense, but what did you think dad was doing? So a couple of things I got, well, I was in second grade when he first got elected. Um,

I was, I think, eight years old and he had three terms, which in New Hampshire means six years because we have two-year terms. So basically I went to elementary school through those years. I knew he was governor. He was head of the state, a state that, you know, my parents, they just love New Hampshire. I mean, my dad just so loved it. He grew up, my dad grew up in a pretty much a Spanish-speaking household in Queens, New York, right? And so, you know, when he came to Boston, he was a professor at the time at Tufts University. He was a teacher. He was an engineer. Right.

And then I knew he had run for office for things here and there. So I'd always grown up with him running for local office or the state house or something like that. And then when he finally becomes governor, I knew what it was and I got it, but it was still New Hampshire. Like he still came home every night. That's one of the best parts about being a governor is you get to be really influential and make a lot of impact with real tough decisions. But for the most part, you come home every night. And so in that respect, it wasn't very different. Here's one for you.

Our address and phone number were in the phone book. The governor's address. We didn't live in a governor's mansion. We lived in the same house we had always grown up in. That's just the way we roll here. So my address and phone number were in the phone book. Anyone in the state could have, and sometimes did pick up the phone and just call, just call the house. And when you have eight kids, my dad was like,

Fer, get the phone. Elizabeth, get the phone. Kathy, get the phone. He wasn't getting the phone, but one of us would. And sometimes he'd get some pretty interesting characters on the other end of that line. But it was cool. That's just the way we rolled. And my parents were really...

They love part of what they loved about New Hampshire is that even in the role as your dad as governor, they tried every which way to keep it super, super normal. And so in that respect, it wasn't that big of a deal, to be honest. I mean, I think he did a great job in his six years. Now, that was also before social media.

before the polarization of politics. Everybody really, for the most part, got along. New Hampshire was more of a red state at the time. We're more purple now. We're not blue by any means, but we're more purple now. And so it was more Republican. So, you know, some of his toughest battles were with fellow Republicans. I never worried about him not winning re-election. We never really had that thought in our heads, although I suppose it could have happened. But yeah, so they tried to keep it really, really normal.

You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Governor Chris Sununu right after this. So as you're going along, anybody who wants to become the president of the United States heads to New Hampshire. I mean, you got that first...

the first primary there you must have been meeting quite the collection of people did you did fur understand i'm talking about you third person here but did fur really understand like who was coming to dinner and who your dad was hanging out with and i mean did that like register at all that wow every named politician in republican politics was cozying up to your dad

Yeah, sort of. And that hit home in 88 because in 84 Reagan was president. Right. So he and Reagan had come. That was a huge deal when Ronald Reagan came to the state in 1984. And, you know, he kind of made a stop off and we're here at the state house. Actually, I met Ronald Reagan literally five feet from where I'm sitting right now, which is really bizarre. I was, I think, in like the fourth grade at the time. But then 88 comes and my dad really believed in George H.W. Bush. I mean, he just.

He just believed in him very strongly. So normally the governor of New Hampshire wouldn't get involved in the primary and wouldn't endorse. But my dad said, I believe in him. I mean, and I, you know, stand by my principles and maybe he win, maybe he won't, but I'm going to work hard for him. And he did. And so I can't remember how many, you know, if he would, I'm sure he was meeting folks, but it was more at the state house. They weren't necessarily coming to dinner or anything.

But I know at the early kind of mid 87 into 88, spent a lot of time with with the Bush 41 and was just a phenomenal guy, by the way. I mean, you just I mean, you know, I mean, you just want to talk about a stand up guy that wants to make the sacrifices and do right by his country. I mean, he was it. He was just a true American hero, by the way.

Anyway, so that's really was the kind of the first in the nation memory for us. But obviously, there's just a lot of action and a lot of intensity. And because my dad had endorsed him in 88, he was right on the front lines. And after he lost Iowa, my dad tells I won't I don't want to take my dad's story per se, but he does tell a great story flying back.

from Iowa to New Hampshire after Bush 41 had lost and everyone's kind of dour and what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And my dad's like, don't worry, we got this. Trust me, we got this. And everything turned around in those two weeks and Bush ends up winning here pretty strong, you know, going from, you know, third or fourth in the polls to winning it in the last couple of weeks and, you know, pulling a few tricks out of the hat. And that just launched him, obviously. And next thing you know, he's president of the United States. So, yeah.

Yeah, it was a little different. Now, as governor, I mean, I think especially this time around in 16, I was running kind of side by side, if you will. I don't want to say side by side with President Trump, but, you know, we're all running together on the same ticket. And and so we saw a lot of candidates come through in 16. We saw a lot of Democrat candidates come through in 20. And then I think it's going to be an absolute free for all in 24. So I'm really getting a front row seat this time.

So you, well, let's go back to your being, my time here at high school. I don't know if you were a fur when you were in high school, but. No, I kept that. I kept that. I was pretty much in the house. I didn't let my friends know that one. Okay. All right. I didn't ask for that. So now you're Chris or Christopher. I don't know what they're calling you down in, in Virginia. Your dad's the chief of staff. Yankee. They were calling me a Yankee. Oh, that Yankee from New England. What's he with that weird accent?

Who likes those Red Sox. Yeah. And what, but as you go through that experience, your dad's a chief of staff. Did you have awkward teenage years or was that like a pretty smooth time for you? I'm sorry. Did anybody not have awkward teenage years? Because I'd like to meet that guy. I mean, I had this, I have this friend and I've told this story before. I've got this friend, Mike Maurer, who works in the governor's office here in Utah. Yeah.

And once upon a time, I used to be chief of staff to the governor of Utah here in Utah. Somehow it came up like, you know, what is life's most embarrassing moment? And Mike Maurer's answer, I think, was the best because his answer was, well, my most embarrassing moment. Yes. Sixth through 12th grade. Yeah.

There you go. That's it. In that respect. Yeah. I guess the hardest part was with me, especially in high school, everyone kind of knew the situation with my dad and everything. So anything that was slightly embarrassing got massively exaggerated. Right. Or was somebody would try to make it something political or whatever. Um,

You know, I went to TJ and it was a very, just to be blunt, a very super smart high school, right? You had to take, it's a public school, it's a magnet school, but you had to take a test to get in. And they had really high standards. So every, and it was in Washington, Northern Virginia. So I would walk into high school and like half the school is like sitting by their locker, reading the Washington Post.

and boast. I'm like, oh my God. What high school does that? Right? So it was really engaged. And in that sense, it was, you know, you had great discussions and all that kind of stuff, but it also meant from a political standpoint, yeah, anything that was embarrassing or anything you just wanted to keep down low in those days, you just want to pull...

Remember, in those days, I was wearing like a flannel shirt, kind of the hat pulled down. You know, it was really the grunge phase of everything, right? I was in those early 90s years. And so those days when you just want to like put your hat, pull your hat all the way down and not even deal with anybody.

Because, you know, whether it's you had a zit that you didn't want noticed or whatever, you just felt like the whole world was staring you staring you down sometimes when you're when your family's in that spotlight. And at that point, going from governor of New Hampshire to now White House chief of staff, where sometimes he's on the front page of those local of those national papers or part of the story. Or he's you know, he's on CNN that night because he's standing in the background or, you know, with the president. Everything just gets highlighted. And so that kind of sucked, to be honest. I mean, it really sucked.

So I appreciated some interesting times down in Northern Virginia, but it was hard, not so much from an embarrassing standpoint, but an awkward. And there's a slight difference there, right? It was just, everything was just,

And by the end, that's why I was thinking about going to some schools in the South. But I had missed home. I had missed New England. And I had the opportunity to come back and go to school in Boston. And that's one of the things, I don't want to say that drove me there. But because those years had been a little bit awkward, had been a little bit exaggerated on that level, I couldn't wait to get back to New England and back to – I had lost my accent by then.

You know, I used to have a kind of pretty hard townie accent up here in New England. And then I went down to Virginia and that was where they're saying y'all and all this kind of stuff. And pretty soon I was probably saying y'all. I was like Madonna when she goes to London and inherits the British accent or something. So I was down there and saw kind of this combination of a slight northern Virginia slash southern accent with a New England accent. Makes me sound like I'm from California, I guess. I don't know.

But now I'm back home. It's not that bad. I promise. Yeah. And so growing up, what was your first job that you had? Like your first, hey, I was out and about. And, you know, I mean, you probably had chores at home, right? But what was the first job that you had? Yeah, I had paper route.

Yeah, I took my brother's paper route and I liked doing that actually, because I knew all my neighbors. It was a pretty easy paper route, but that was when I was really little. And then when I got into high school, like for a job job, I did some construction on the side. And then the, you know, the best, the first, you know, in college is one of the jobs that I, for whatever reason, I just remember the most. I worked at a landscaping company in a nursing, a nursery when I was in high school. I

And then some construction. I like being outside and working with my hands. But then I worked at a movie theater. I was really into film. I was going to MIT to get my engineering degree, my civil and environmental engineering degree, which I later did for about 12 years.

but I loved film and I minored in film and I was very strongly considering going to Hollywood and trying to work in film in Hollywood. So I worked at a movie theater, a giant, one of the biggest movie theaters in Boston. And man, talk about trial by fire. I mean, it was kind of an inner city theater. Your first year you're there, it's in months there. It's kind of disgusting. I mean, just, you know, you learn what's in the popcorn and the butter they use in the popcorn and all that. But I got to see all the movies I wanted.

But for some reason, it always made such a stark impression on me. First time I was really doing retail. You ever do a retail job? I don't know what your first job was. Hey, I went from gardening in Arizona to hanging wallpaper with

you know helping somebody hang wallpaper then i realized i was a white collar guy and my first job working at a movie theater where at the general general cinema corporation on my powder blue blazer and my clip-on bow tie with my short sleeve white shirt at arizona at the time oh yeah i did everything from pop the popcorn sell the popcorn clean up the popcorn

Yeah, we sold tickets the whole bit. And in my senior year, went up to Colorado. A single, I mean, it's kind of a total opposite. I did everything. I was the only employee that would be working many nights off.

Sell the tickets pop and sell a popcorn and then I had to run in the back to start the movie at people say Are we late? That's like no, don't worry about it I can't turn on the turn on the camera tell till I finish filling your popcorn order So it was kind of fun literally a single screen the silver screen cinemas there and in Winter Park, Colorado It was in the basement. It was down underneath the the retail shops. Oh, it's fun. Yeah, that's awesome. I

See, I worked in kind of a big one in the city. And so I'm preaching to the choir. You kind of have to do everything. You're like, Chris, you got to go clean the bathroom. Chris, you got to, you know, wash up now. Now you got to mop this up now. And then the thing I always found amazing, my first day on the job, a movie gets out and they said, all right, we got to go in and clean. I said, okay. And the guy turns around, he hands me a leaf blower. I'm like, what the heck do I do with this? What is this? He goes, you stand in the back and-

everything on that floor to the front. Then we squeegee it all up the front. And like, I was like, okay. So I stood there and I would, I would the leaf blower from the back under the seats, you're blowing popcorn and soda, just spilling it everywhere, but they didn't care. It was the fastest way to clean it up. And

And then, you know, that's why the floors would be all sticky and disgusting because they would actually intentionally almost spill this stuff, push it all of the front. The one guy would have like a snow shovel. We're New England. Yeah. And he would snow shovel all the stuff to one side, dump it in the bucket. You're out of there in 30 seconds and you do the next one. And I'm like,

okay, well, I'm an engineer. I like innovation. Okay. You kind of learn a lot of life skills doing all that. First of all, you're recounting that story brings back this aroma that is permanently in brain ingrained in my head somewhere. And as soon as you see that, I start, I can smell it. I can, I can smell that there was a certain mix between soda and popcorn and that butter that just makes, just permeates my brain.

In the shoe. I don't know about you. I had to lose my shoe. After two months, I'm like, I have to throw these shoes away. They're just not – they're so disgusting. So much stuff would get in them and running around. And what we call butter, I think they use more real butter now. But back then, it was some yellow chemical, right? It tasted delicious. Oh, yeah. You're right. Don't look in the butter box.

bin or whatever. That was pretty gross. Yeah. Butter washes out of your clothes. This stuff, it's stained it. I would get a yellow stain from the butter. I'd put it in the wash. It would come out brighter and worse than before. It was sort of odd chemical reaction with the cleaning detergent that would make it even worse. And so, you know, Hey, just cause I dip my hand in there to get a little taste of the butter. It doesn't mean that it wasn't pure and clean folks. When you got your butter popcorn, it's,

It was amazing. You could put it on the popcorn and use it to clean at the same time. It was pure chemical. And it could freshen your breath with a little dip with your finger. It's just awesome. All right. So we got off on that tangent. So you learned the real life retail selling red vines and popcorn and all of that. But you went to MIT. I mean, it's not like you took the easy route out there. Yeah.

What were you going to do if you didn't get into politics? What would you be doing? So I go to MIT and it's funny. I go to MIT and I'm in a fraternity and, you know, we get towards graduation. And all of a sudden I realize all my buddies and we all have engineered different engineering degrees, chemical, aerospace, mechanical and civil environmental. And all of a sudden they're like, yeah, we're all going to work in Wall Street. And I'm like, wait, what? Well, I thought we're engineers.

Oh, no, no. Wall Street wants MIT engineers. Did you get the memo? And I'm like, shoot, no, I really didn't get that memo. So I loved being an engineer and I was more on the environmental side for about 12 years. My thing was cleaning up hazardous waste sites. I was drilling holes, finding contaminated soil and groundwater, cleaning the sites up and redeveloping them. Right.

And so whether it was someone hiring my firm to fight the EPA or whatever it was, we just tried to be very common sense and smart about cleaning up old sites and redeveloping them for better use. And I loved it. And it kept me outside, right? It wasn't just all on a computer type engineering, although there was a little bit of that.

in terms of the modeling and design we had to do. But I love doing the environmental stuff. And then I just got to the point where, you know, you get to that point of 12 years, like, am I ready to, do I want to make that next big leap and commit another 10 or 12 years to this? Or is this not maybe the career for me? It's a great job, but maybe not the career. And I want to try something different. So I went into kind of business consulting and development. And then that haphazardly fell me into running a

I ended up buying and running a ski resort. I put an investment group together and I bought a great ski resort here in New Hampshire that we loved. I was just trying to help them. One of those things where I just want to be helpful for another group. And next thing you know, I'm, I'm in charge. And I don't know anything about running a ski resort, by the way. They don't give classes for that at MIT, as far as I know. And, but I, I, I wrote the business plan. I did the financial model. I found the investors. I did it all. And they all said, look, you wrote the business plan, right? I said, yeah. They said, we'll follow the plan.

We like what you're about. We like what you do. You have the right take on this. And so the investors wanted me to run it, which I did for about six years. And then through a whole another series of odd events, I ended up running for governor. So I didn't think I was going to run for governor. I didn't think I was going to run a ski resort. I didn't know I was going to be an engineer for 10 years. So don't ask me what I'm doing in two or three years from now. I have no idea. So at some point you –

you met that special somebody got married, right? Had started having kids in a family of your own. Yeah. That was part of the, that was in the rule book. I think that, you know, at some point you have to meet someone and have kids in a family. So we checked that box and Valerie's great. I met my wife at school. Um, she was at Simmons college while I was at MIT. Uh, we started getting together kind of as I was graduating and, uh,

It was great. We got engaged, moved to San Francisco. I mean, Nancy Pelosi was my congresswoman. Like, let's cut right to that, right? So I lived in the heart of San Francisco for about three years. And we did it because we were young and we were married and we wanted to see a different part of the country. And this was...

right at the dot-com boom of San Francisco in 2000. So we weren't dot-commers. I was a civil engineer. She was a school teacher. So we had to pay these astronomical amounts just to rent a place, you know, like could show up to get an apartment in San Francisco. And there's like a hundred people waiting just to get in. And you're like, well, this isn't going to work.

Got lucky, friend of a friend of a friend type story, found a tiny little apartment in the back of a garage. And she went to work every day over the Golden Gate Bridge as a school teacher. I worked in a firm in downtown cleaning up environmental sites in San Francisco, Oakland, Utah. Did a lot of work out in Tuella Army Depot.

Yeah. Yeah.

The other one down south that you could tell a Utahner, really not somebody from here, is if they say, oh, I was in Hurricane, Utah. Like, no, it's Hurricane. It's totally different. It's Hurricane. It's not Hurricane. But Tooele is the toughest one on the map. You got that now. You got some Utah credentials.

all the twill and so my mom would call me what are you doing in tuli i'm like just leave it be but you know you sometimes you'd get in the in the salt lake you'd uh as you know you get i would i'm a fish killer like all of a sudden something would happen with the ph all these fish would die one night and the smell frankly would come 15 miles south down on the high plains of utah which is absolutely beautiful but man it would rip and stink i'm not gonna lie i love it if the winds are going the wrong direction look out it's not good yeah and

Unfortunately, it only lasts a day or two, but then it comes and it goes. Even if you're further away from Tooele, believe me, I've been there. So you're sitting around one time and you're like, honey, listen, I think I'm going to do what my dad did. I think I'm going to run for governor. What made you think like, hey, this is really a good idea because it's easy?

I'm still not sure if it's a good idea. I've been doing it five years. Yeah, but you're running again. You're going for a term number four. I call everyone else crazy and I'm the guy going for a fourth term. So a couple of things. At the time I was running the ski resort and I was running my own business.

And the two things happen. Number one, I started having kids. And so my kids start going through the schools and I'm like, way this, I grew up in the public schools here. This is not quite what I was expecting. We live in a tiny town, 1500 people. And I'm like, this, this isn't quite, I have, you know, real high standards. New Hampshire schools are phenomenal. Not quite what I was expecting.

As a business, we were also really above board on the environmental side and the permitting side and the regulatory side. And the regulations were so unbearable. And I thought this is the live free or die state. This is not like we, I realized from a business owner point of view that we'd really slipped. We'd become closer and closer like our neighbors, the mass Vermont and Massachusetts of the world that frankly, we usually make fun of, right? I mean, I love those. They're great, great places, but from a regulatory standpoint, they're usually the butt of our joke. And

And so here's the, the really tough part, getting to your question. My, my wife didn't like skiing and I was running a ski resort. She can't stand politics. And I'm like, so I'm going to go from one job that, you know, isn't really your thing at all to a job. That's even less of your thing. But, uh,

Don't worry. I think it's a good idea and it'll work out. And she was very supportive. I mean, she really was. And I think she believes very strongly in what we've been able to do and how we've been able to really fundamentally change the state for the positive. But it's hard, man. It is so hard on the social media, with wife, with young kids,

I have teenagers. I mean, all through COVID. It's been a, I don't mean, I'm not asking one. Don't cry for me. Right. But it's been really hard on the family. And I carry that. That's a really hard burden. Now, we only get elected every two years here. Total accountability in the system.

I've been elected three times. I've been governor for a little over five years. And I am going to run for a fourth term. And I never thought of that either. But with COVID still kind of lingering out there with a couple other issues of the federal money coming in, how it's going to be spent. We don't want to grow government. We want to stay regulatory, be flexible with the freest state in the country in terms of public freedoms. And so a lot of things have been the seeds have been planted really well. But

I don't think the roots have taken. And I came to the conclusion, given I had to make this decision a few months ago, that given all we still had ahead of us, I needed just a little more time to get some of these new programs and new systems that we've designed to take root. So I am going for a fourth term. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm not. I don't know. I think it's I think we've done great by the state. And I do love the state. And I just don't want to leave it and let it slip. I just want some of this stuff to take a little more time to take root. Some of these

I get very involved in the details. So these programs, whether it's dealing with opioids or mental health or all these different things, we're trying all new stuff. A lot of it's working. But if you don't like anything, it really is. If you don't water it every day, you don't sing to the plant a little bit, it's not going to necessarily be there tomorrow. And so we want to make sure it's really sustainable for the future. Yeah. You really haven't been there that long when you put it in the context of it's every two years you're running a

um that's it's not like you've stayed in perpetuity and and uh no but you had a big decision i mean i think look nationally the united states senate is just right on the precipice one vote here one vote there and i think there were a lot of people that understood how incredibly popular um and well received that you are in new hampshire that you might run for the united states senate but

you know, being governor, you can get a lot done and you can be the chief executive and it is a different system than most states. So,

Help us understand how that decision, because I think nationally you're getting a lot of pressure to run for the Senate. Oh, an immense amount of pressure. And I gave it real thought. I thought I was going to do it for a while, to be honest. But the way when I decided not to run, I know some people were very upset because they're like, how could you say no to us and all this? And look, I was probably a little, I don't want to say overly critical, but

I think across the board, I'm not thrilled. And I think I speak for most of America that I just don't think the U.S. Senate and frankly, U.S. Congress has lived up to the standards that we want to in terms of our elected officials. I just think they can do more. I think they can try harder on bipartisanship. And to the point you just made as a governor,

I'm not term limited out. If I was term limited out of being governor, you know, Doug Ducey or Larry Hogan or, you know, when Rick Scott was Rick Scott was a great governor of Florida and he was term limited out, but he wanted to keep serving. So it made logical sense to run for the Senate. I'm not term limited. I love my job. It's really hard, but it's amazingly fulfilling. And as the chief executive, every day I can make a new decision to impact somebody's life. You cannot do that in Washington. You just can't.

Right. D.C. has its policies and its temperament and all of that. And maybe I just don't have those skill sets, but I can tell you I'm much more suited to protect New Hampshire's interest, even on a national level as governor, because I can really design stuff. And I engage at a whole different level with our constituents as opposed to being in D.C. And, you know, you've been there, man. You've you've seen that D.C. bubble and you did a great job. And

was also every it was also a bit of a different time you know and even just a few years ago it was a colossally different time than it is now things are still so polarized and you

You know, I'm a good conservative Republican. I am. But if I want to get stuff done, I understand that I got to be able to work with both sides one way or the other, especially in a purple state like New Hampshire. So we got school choice done. People said it could never get done. We got it done. People said we were never going to be able to cut the taxes that we did. We just I've never raised the tax. We slashed taxes.

interest in dividends tax, even my dad, I go to him one day and I'm like, hey, I'm going to get rid of the interest in dividends tax. He's like, you can't do it. He's like, Republicans will never let you do it. And I was able to be able to put that in. And so we have no sales tax, we have no income tax, and we're rolling the interest in dividends to zero in the next couple of years. So creating that kind of opportunity and getting that stuff done both politically and practically, good management, good fiscal management allows you to flex and to do that kind of stuff.

It's wicked challenging, but man, it can make a fundamental difference in the state. So I love it. I just love it. And that's the biggest thing that kept me from running from the Senate is I didn't want to give up and I wasn't ready to just give up what I love doing. Right. And someone said to me, they go,

hey, Gov, think of this. You have to get elected every two years. One of only two governors in the country, by the way, me and Vermont, that have to get elected every two years. And they said, now you only have to get elected once every six years. Won't that be great? I said, my God, that's terrible. If I hate it in the first year, I'm trapped for five more years, man. I said, I'm a young guy. Like, you know, I don't want to feel trapped like that. And I said, if that were to happen, and I think there's a 50-50 chance it would have,

I probably would have driven them as crazy as they were driving me. So I just knew it wasn't going to be the right fit and partnership in terms of a legislative opportunity in Washington. So I'm more of an executive. I'm a CEO. I'm an engineer. I design systems. I love that kind of stuff. And you can just do more of that as a gov.

Yeah, I think that's true. You know, I sought up close and personal chief of staff to a governor, but then also, you know, eight and a half years in Congress. And you do pull out your hair there in Congress because the amount of time that is spent spinning your wheels only to have the

the speaker suddenly say, well, we're not going to do any appropriations bills. We're just going to do an omnibus. Yes or no? 1.5 trillion. Yes or no? Oh, and by the way, we introduced the bill at 1.30 in the morning. I know you haven't had a chance to read any of the 2,700 pages that this bill is, but make your decision because we're voting on it tonight. It's like, what a crappy way to run a business or a government. Like, oh my gosh, what am I doing here? I mean,

You must have gone crazy. I mean, I just I know you enough about your personality to know you just because you're really given it's an ultimatum. Right. Yeah. And again, you know, there's there's the underlying, well, you know, what are the politics of this? Are you going to be the one guy in the party that, you know, doesn't do it? And I'm sure I don't want to speak for you, but I imagine you heard from other politicians.

you know, Republicans or even House members like, man, this is not the way I thought I'd be doing this. Well, talk about bipartisan. That was the bipartisan pushback. Like what in the world are we doing here? I mean, everybody put a happy face on it if they were in the majority and it was their speaker doing it. But if you're in the minority, you just like, come on. And

The process, since the 1974 Budget Act, only one time has it gone through what's called regular order to actually get to the point that you do the appropriations bills and you vote them in the way you're supposed to. And then it's so bad about these bills when they come in as an omnibus or a continuing resolution is –

And inevitably, everybody gets ads running either for them or against them saying, you voted against this or you voted for that. I'm like, you can't lay that on me when it's 2,700 pages. Like, it's just...

And the fear of that, I imagine. I imagine a lot of people just get scared of what might happen. Yeah, you better stay with the team. And I'm like, really? But I don't want to vote for these. Take one subject at a time. Can't we do that? Do we not have enough time? And if we don't have enough time in two years or in one year, why don't we make the budget cycle every two years? One Congress, one budget. How about we do that if we're going to spend that many trillions of dollars on

It is kind of insane. So I'm pretty jealous of, you know, a good state like New Hampshire, good people involved, a wide array of people involved, a manageable budget, people that you can interact with, and then you can really actually make a difference on mental health and on school and on those types of things. So hats off to you. You seem to be doing it right.

Can I throw one more thing in there? You know what else I love about the job? And I mean this very sincerely. I love my team. I love the governors I get to work with. So, you know, if I have an issue, I can call, you know, Charlie Baker. I can call Spencer Cox. Spencer's a great, I mean, that guy's an awesome governor, by the way. I think he's doing a great job in Utah. I can call Gianforte. I can call Governor Lee in Tennessee. I can call Dougie in North Dakota, or I can call Doug Part 2 in Arizona, or I can call Brian in Georgia. So,

And they pick up the phone and say, oh, yeah, you know, I tried this with mental health and the Medicaid reimbursement was here. Try to do something. And we would we can talk about the systems and what works there and what doesn't work here and all that. And really, the Republican governors, for the most part, are really tight. I mean, they really are. And even working with Democrat governors, again, there's this very complex.

especially over COVID, there was a lot of bipartisanship because we were all in it together. Every governor was writing their own playbook. Every legislature effectively went away and every governor had to really was in a state of emergency just having the plan. And so every night we would all get on the phone together and just bat around ideas. What they're seeing, what are the trends? How are you getting PPE? How are you managing your veterans? How are you dealing with your vulnerable homeless? Whatever it was, I could go on and on about that.

But having that team, I just really enjoy working with other governors so much. And not that I want to enjoy working with the senators per se, but, you know, like I said, I wasn't ready to quit, you know, where I was. And that's what the Senate was really asking me to do. Quit being governor so you can be a 51st vote. And by the way, I don't think I was going to be the 51st vote. I was going to win the election. That's not the issue. But I think we're going to get 53 or 54 votes.

Republican senators this time around. I think this administration is simply that bad. And so the burden of being that 51st governor, you need to be the 51st vote to stop socialism.

I heard that loud and clear. And I thought about it. But the more we got, the deeper we got into it, I realized I'm not the only one that can win here. I think we're going to flip, Republicans are going to flip a few different seats over. And we're going to have that checks and balance where it needs to be. Well, and the other hard part, and look, New Hampshire's that much closer to D.C. You can get back and forth. But boy, just the time away from the family really takes its toll. But all right. Oh, yeah, my wife was not coming down with me. Oh, God, no, she was not coming down at all.

Like you asked for it, brother. But there's a lot of vacation. I'll say that people say, you know, it's really hard being a senator. I'm like, well, look, as a governor, I'm on 24 seven all day, every day. Right. Because I mean, I mean, I couldn't believe the amount of time, the time and state or whatever you guys, whatever the Senate would call it. They sent me this calendar and I was like,

My God, you're out of Washington quite a bit. That was actually kind of a – I haven't gone on a vacation and lived with my family in literally three years. And so the idea of actually having some time off where I could really get away – look, if there's an emergency, I've got to be here to call up the National Guard. I've got to be here to deal with the weather crisis. The federal delegation doesn't have to deal with any of that. And so that makes it really hard to get away and probably – Yeah, you better not be caught off in some –

Florida Beach or, yeah, hiking. No, no, when the ice storms come. You come to the Red Rocks of Utah, no problem. We're happy to have you here. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this.

All right, Governor, I got to ask you some rapid questions as we wrap up here. You know, Fur has gone through a lot and you went through a lot as governor. But let's see if you can't get through these rapid questions. We get to know you just a little bit better. All right. All right, brother. Give me what you got. First concert you attended.

uh poison poison yeah in the late 80s poison yeah like in new hampshire poison was playing new hampshire where were they at boston where yeah uh no the worcester centrum in massachusetts yeah yeah that was my first you know significant concert was poison all right uh what was your high school mascot uh patriots oh yeah that's it that's it yeah it was named after thomas jefferson i did thomas yeah we're the patriots well that makes total sense favorite vegetable

Is there one really pepperoni defined as a pepperoni vegetable? All right. I like it. Hey, if we're counting pepperonis as vegetables, I am all in. I found my new favorite vegetable salad. I'm old school. I just like a good salad. Can we just, you know, the garden salad people think I'm so boring.

I like spinach, sauteed spinach. Let's go with that. I'm not like George. You're right. That is boring. And I told my wife, I said, you know, I need all those nutrients. The older I get, the more I need them. I can't just survive on Big Macs like I did in high school. But let's puree it. Let's put it in that blender, and I'll just –

put every nutrient that I need in there and I will just drink it as fast as I can. Like a power shake? Yeah, like a power shake. She just blends it all. There's spinach and broccoli and I don't know, all kinds of stuff in there and I just drink it and drink it fast. But it's good. She pours a little cinnamon in it, makes it a little more palatable. Really? Is that like with an ice or like a

milk base or water? No, no milk. They should throw some yogurt and bananas in there, but no, this is more like a little ground up ice. It usually comes out kind of cool. I am trying to do more smoothies, like for lunch here in Concord, I'll either get a salad or a smoothie, but the hard...

you know this as a congressman too, you know, and as a governor, every time you have a breakfast meeting or you go visit someone, you walk in and it's just like they have pastries and coffee for the governor and they want to sit down and it's hard to read and the cookies for every afternoon meeting, not in my office, but if it's outside of the office, which most of them are, they come prepared to feed you. Like, it's like every time you go to a meeting, you're walking into an Italian home with a giant thing of pasta and, you know, ravioli for a four course meal. So it's hard to be rude.

You don't want to be rude and not eat their cupcakes. So you got to have at least half of it. Exactly. Forget half of it. Look, if I don't take three, I'm being rude. So let's just cut right to the chase. All right. Here's a big one. With your kale smoothie or whatever you're drinking. See? All right. What's pineapple on pizza? Yes or no?

Oh, God, no. No, let's look. I've talked about banning that. Let's get really serious for a minute here. Pineapple has no place on pizza. I've talked about an executive order to ban it. My team has called me off on it. But I tell you what, you give me a fourth term and we're going to have some real. Anything. All right. Well, good. See, I can see why you're so popular. Unique talent nobody knows about. Something that fur can do that nobody knows.

She's I'm not sure I can juggle as a talent. I don't know. I can't do it. So no one really knows about everyone. Like I'm like such an open book now. Yeah. I guess maybe that would be my slight little talent. I'm not incredibly talented. I guess. Do you like jump when you ski or do you just like, not as much. I used to do a lot in the air, but now that I have kids, I try to keep both feet on the ground and, you know, be a good example and all that. My kids are pretty dare are pretty strong daredevils, but yeah,

Yeah, I guess I'm probably – yeah, maybe that's a hidden – I don't know if it's a hidden talent. I'm probably a better skier than most people realize just because I love doing it. It's one thing I really had a lot of passion with growing up. We're getting near the end here, but what's that other thing for Chris Sununu? Like what do you do when you want to clear your head, get away from everything, and just think, all right, I just – like for me, I like wildlife photography, that sort of thing. What do you do to kind of clear your head and just –

Stop thinking about work. Yeah, I love to hike. I hiked the Appalachian Trail about 20, almost 25 years ago now. So I got up one day and I hiked a mountain in Maine and I walked to Georgia. Oh, my goodness. How far is that? Just shy of 2200 miles, about 2200. Wow. So it took me about five. Were you camping along the way? Did you do it all? Yeah.

Yeah, it's all contiguous. So I just started, we started walking and I mean, there's a whole story behind that and a lot of people do it, but it's 2200 miles. I was southbound and, you know, I just, it was, it was after college and I had two choices. I was either going to become an engineer and use this degree I had just earned, or I really wanted to go to Hollywood and, and kind of, I'd gone to NYU film school for just a little bit and got a little taste of it.

And I was trying to figure all that out. And so, yeah, I love hiking. And so that's, and to this day still, I like just, I'm very outdoorsy that way. So yeah. Oh, I'm good for you. Well, you're in the right state. I mean, it's a beautiful state to hike. That's for sure. Oh no, we got them. We got our 4,000 footers in Mount Washington and the presidential range and all over New England. I mean, we're blessed. I mean,

We're blessed to be in a place where you have all four seasons. You know, hiking in the fall is very different than hiking in the summer. And it's really, really different than hiking in the winter because there's a whole series of winter hikes you can do. So you can do the same mountain, the same trail four different times over the year and you get four completely different experiences. So we're pretty lucky in that sense. Well, that's fun. What about you? What's it for you? I loved going out in wildlife photography. Out west here, we can go find big game like bear, elk,

deer moose i mean you name it you can get out after it and uh that gets your adrenaline pumping and the next thing you know it's you know you spent all day and you haven't even thought about any worry that you have i just absolutely love it so now do you like doing that alone or do you like actually bringing somebody with you sometimes i do it alone but it's more fun i've got some friends some buddies the guys that are good photographers like a charlie lance that sort of thing

My wife comes out with me and does it sometimes. And man, she's tenacious. Those bears are... I'm like, Julie, get back. That's a bear. That's a legit bear. That's a grizzly bear. And it's...

And so she – but she's really good at it, and she likes it. It's just fun for us to be out and about. Does she shoot too? Does she do the photography piece too? Yeah, I got to get it a little more teed up so that she just points and shoots. But she doesn't spend the hours that I do trying to figure out all the nuances of all the little tricks. All right. So what do you use? What's your equipment of choice? I'm a Canon guy. I'm a Canon guy. I –

And I've got this 400 millimeter lens that I really like and that I really enjoy, but I'm, I'm all Canon. Once you go Canon or Nikon or whatever, or Sony, you got to kind of go one direction. So I'm all in with Canon, but it's fun. It's really fun. And you know, I'm with you on the hiking and getting out at the Utah, the mountains, the red rocks, the desert. I love them all. So it's so beautiful. You know, I'm headed out there. I, every year I will do a couple of days at,

In Deer Valley, we have a conference that, and I go out with a couple of Republican governors and there's meetings and it's business oriented. But I try to take a half a day and do a few runs. And, you know, the mountains in the West are just so different than the East, you know, for half the time. And the East skiing is awesome, but you are ice skating down the mountain.

skill that you have to earn but when you go to the the um you know you go to like park city or or deer valley or the canyons or i mean it's a whole different level of beauty and it's it's really great i've i've i love and i'm not just saying this man i people ask me gee would you rather ski colorado it's utah it's not even a question uh california it's utah if i'm gonna ski to be sure um

And I love, you know, you've got the best airport there, right there in Salt Lake. It's so easy to do. Yeah, get in and out. You get in and out. You're literally at the base of the mountain in 45 minutes. And you just can't beat that as opposed to like flying into Denver or something. It's really difficult. Yeah, then you've got five hours to get out to Vail or something. And people don't realize out west, our snow is truly powder. It's so dry that you can't even make a snowball out of it.

I mean, oh, yeah, you go if you go to Alta on the right day, it's like it literally is like I'm not going to say it's skiing in ash, but that's what it is. It's so dry. It's true. It floats up in the air and it stays in the air. And that's exactly it.

We get powder, but our powder has a little more water in it and stuff. I used to go out, like people used to say, cause they were in a ski resort. They're like, Oh, you must ski out West all the time. I'm like, no, I'm working right. I over Christmas break, I'm working, you know, 20 hours a day running a ski resort. So when I would visit like with,

with some of the other managers out there in our national conferences for ski areas, you know, the East coast guys are talking about, you know, making snow and really tough conditions. And the West coast guys are like, well, you know, we have 500 acres of bowls and powder that there's no snowmaking. So our issues are so different in our, our business was so different, but it's beautiful, man. I mean, I'm jealous. Well, good. We'll get you down to the red rocks too. It's a little hiking with that family. Get in a,

Get in a Jeep or a Hummer or something and go up on those red rocks like you've never seen before. That'll give you a thrill. All right, last question. I got to give you a last question because I promised your folks. You talked about the team you want to work with. They're going to be mad I took up so much of your time. So last question. Best advice you ever got.

So my dad, this is from my dad actually. And my dad's very good about not giving me too much advice, but he said, "Be wary of unsolicited advice."

because it's, and beware, very most importantly of giving unsolicited advice, because if someone didn't ask for your advice, it's very, it's a minimal chance that they're actually going to take it in the first place. And you're more just espousing for your own benefit. So, and that's it. And I don't mind trying to give people advice, but I'm also trying to, you know, give facts and information, let people draw their own conclusions and have their own advice. So I try to be very wary about being too preachy about my advice. And that one's from my dad.

Interesting. Interesting. Well, look, I don't go into politics, but I know that. Yeah. Friends don't let friends go for Congress. So that's good. You made that decision all by yourself. That's good. Listen, Governor Chris Sununu, governor of New Hampshire. And I just cannot thank you enough for joining us on the Jason in the House podcast. And

sharing the insight in your story and in your life. And I really do appreciate it. Oh, this is super fun. You wait. So you do this out of Utah, right?

It depends where I'm at. Sometimes you could do this all over the place. You know, I do it for Fox News, but yeah, you can be mobile and doing it. It's nice that way. Oh, that's awesome. That is really awesome. At some point, I'd love to be in studio with you. And just to catch up, we'll grab a turkey sandwich or something. No pineapple on a pizza. And yes, well, something. You're not a pineapple pizza guy, right? No, I hate it. That's the litmus test. Are you, you know, are you a rational human being or not? Yeah.

I like pineapple. I like pizza. They just don't put wet fruit on my pizza. That's all. Done. Done and done. All right. I'm going to go work on the executive order for that right now.

All right, Governor Chris Sununu, thanks for joining us on the Jason Ellis Podcast. Thank you so much, brother. Be good, everybody. All right. I can't thank Governor Sununu enough. That was fun. I mean, you could tell. We just kept talking. He's just a great, wonderful guy, beautiful family and working hard and obviously very popular there in the state of New Hampshire.

where it's just such a beautiful state. I love it up there. And I look forward to go back and visit with him at some point. I hope he gets out to Utah and out west so we can show him some of our desert and red rocks and

Some serious, big, tall mountains with lots of vertical feet. So and some amazing snow. So, Governor Sununu, thanks so much for joining us. And thanks for you listening to the Jason in the House podcast. Hope you can rate this. Subscribe to our podcast. Also, check out Fox News podcast dot com or look at some of the other podcasts out there. And we appreciate it. I'm Jason Chaffetz and this has been Jason in the House.

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