Sununu sounds off on virus, D.C. gridlock and 'negative' Feltes campaign

ROCHESTER - With just days left before the election General Election on Nov. 3, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu on Tuesday blasted Congress for not being able to pass even a "skinny bill" to help Americans who are having a hard time making ends meet as many shutdowns across the country continue.

"You have to get something done," he said Tuesday morning in Rochester where he accepted the endorsement of the National Federation of Independent Business at RP Abrasives & Machine Inc. "Even if it's not everything you wanted, you get something."

The recent skinny bill offered by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell wasn't really that skinny. It was $500 billion worth of relief with added funding for the Paycheck Protection Program and additional unemployment benefits. It also included broad liability protections for businesses allowing them COVID-19 protections so they could open without being fearful of lawsuits if someone were to claim they got the virus at their store.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, wanted a $1.8-$2.4 trillion bill that would have provided some of the same benefits as McConnell's, but also would have bailed out blue states like California, Illinois and New York that were deep in the red before the pandemic. It would also send out stimulus checks to Americans, including illegal immigrants.

The fact that Washington has been unable to come up with a second stimulus package they can agree on since March has been a constant frustration for governors around the country, Sununu said.

"They haven't passed a single bill, they haven't done anything," he added. "There's been a lot of political fighting, so I think I speak for all 50 governors, not just here in New Hampshire, that we're all very frustrated cause there were a lot of commitments, a lot of promises made, and none of them fulfilled, and they have to be held accountable for those results."

During the impromptu press conference outside RPA Abrasives, Sununu also said that a slight uptick in the COVID-19 positivity rate among new New Hampshire cases doesn't really concern him, but that they are keeping an eye on it.

State DHHS officials began submitting the number in the lead of their daily updates on Oct. 2, when it was recorded at .7 percent. Since then it has moved up and down daily while trickling slowly upward, to .9 percent on Oct. 9, to 1.1 percent on Oct. 16 to 1.3 percent on Oct. 23. It dropped back to 1.1 on Wednesday.

"A single days doesn't really concern us, but I think it will trickle up slowly," he said noting we are in a surge. "People have to be prepared for that, but we too. We have to hope for the best, expect the worst, and be ready and we are."

He said DHHS and state health officials are ready to respond with whatever is needed.

"We can look at it surgically," he said. "If there are problems - it could be retail or restaurants - we can deal with it," he said, adding they have contract tracers who can pinpoint where outbreaks do occur and work to mitigate the damage.

Sununu also had a message of cautious optimism.

"Our mortality rate is one of the lowest in the country, and as cases go up that's kind of old news," he said in that he always said there'd be a second surge. "You have to look at the impact on our health system, if we're able to take care of those who get sick; and if the symptoms are getting severe causing severe illness or death."

At the end of the Q&A he expressed his displeasure with his current campaign against Democrat opponent Dan Feltes, saying it had gotten way too negative.

"My opponent is trying to say I'm not pro-choice, I've been a pro-choice governor, I've been pro-choice my whole life, my opponent is saying I'm against the Affordable Care Act CA when I'm one of the few Republican governors in the country defending it in the Supreme Court today.

"I am as transparent as they come, people know me, they trust me," he added. "We are transparent; the other side is being very misleading."

Feltes' responded to the governor's comments today through the campaign's communication director Emma Sands, who said, "Chris Sununu has a 10-year record supporting the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, has vetoed insurance coverage for reproductive health, was the deciding vote on the Executive Council to defund Planned Parenthood and diverted CARES Act funds to a crisis pregnancy center."