(The Hill) – New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) on Sunday called for President Biden to issue an apology after the president compared the “Make American Great Again,” otherwise known as the MAGA-Trump wing of the Republican Party, to “semi-fascism” last week.
Sununu told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that the president’s comments were “horribly insulting.”
“The fact that the president would go out and just insult half of America [and] effectively call half of America semi-fascist,” Sununu said. “He’s trying to stir up controversy, he’s trying to stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election — it’s horribly inappropriate.”
At a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraising event in Bethesda, Md., last week, Biden said the U.S. was seeing “either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy.”
“It’s not just [former President] Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism,” the president said.
Biden has previously criticized the MAGA wing of the GOP, saying “this is not your father’s Republican party” and calling it a “different deal.”
Sununu conceded there are “elements of fascism and white supremacy” in the U.S., but explained it’s also not true that “all the Democrats are communists.”
“When we allow ourselves just to talk in these extremes, we polarize the country,” Sununu told CNN on Sunday, adding Biden on the campaign trail had “said he was going to bring everybody together.”
“And then to call half of America fascists?” the GOP governor asked. “He owes an apology. That’s not appropriate. That isn’t leadership.”