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Tag: fox-news/person/nikki-haley

  • Former Republican senator on potential bid to flip swing state seat red: 'this is a race I know I can win'

    Former Republican senator on potential bid to flip swing state seat red: 'this is a race I know I can win'

    EXCLUSIVE — It’s been nearly two decades since former Sen. John E. Sununu’s name has been on the ballot, but if the New Hampshire Republican decides to launch a 2026 campaign for the swing state’s open Senate seat, he’s confident he can win.

    “I’m sure that if we put together a strong team, this is a race that can be won. This is a race I know I can win. And more importantly, it’s a role where I know I can make a difference for New Hampshire,” Sununu said in his strongest comments to date, in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital.

    The former senator, who reiterated he’ll “make a decision in October” on whether to launch a Senate campaign in the expected competitive race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, said “it’s a winnable race for the right person who reflects our state’s values, not the values of Washington.”

    And despite calling President Donald Trump a “loser” in a newspaper opinion piece early last year, Sununu may land the president’s support if he runs.

    THUNE SPEAKS WITH SUNUNU ABOUT SENATE BID TO FLIP BLUE SEAT RED

    “President Trump appreciates winners and understands that John E. Sununu puts this race on the map for Republicans,” a national Republican familiar with the Senate race in New Hampshire told Fox News Digital.

    Sununu is a former three-term representative who defeated then-Gov. Shaheen in New Hampshire’s 2002 Senate election. But the senator lost to Shaheen in their 2008 rematch. 

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    Shaheen announced earlier this year that she wouldn’t seek re-election in next year’s midterms, and Republicans are hoping to flip the seat as they aim to not only defend but expand their Senate majority. Four-term Rep. Chris Pappas is the clear frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

    After nearly two decades in the private sector, Sununu sounds like someone ready to hit the campaign trail.

    “This is an incredibly important race. It’s an incredibly important time for the country and I feel it might be the right time to step up,” Sununu told Fox News Digital.

    He said that “over the last few weeks, people in New Hampshire have reached out. They’ve encouraged me to run for Senate, because they know how important it is that New Hampshire has the right kind of voice in Washington, someone who will stand up for our state, someone who won’t just be a rubber stamp for anyone else, but will represent New Hampshire every single day.”

    But it’s not just New Hampshire voters who may be encouraging Sununu to run.

    Top national Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have held conversations with the former senator regarding a 2026 Senate campaign, a source told Fox News Digital two weeks ago.

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    Also speaking with Sununu was former Sen. Cory Gardner, chair of the Senate Leadership Fund, which is the top super PAC supporting Senate Republicans. The source added that Thune and Gardner were cautiously optimistic that Sununu would launch a campaign.

    Sununu is a brand name in New Hampshire politics. The former senator’s father, John H. Sununu, is a former governor who later served as chief of staff in then-President George H.W. Bush’s White House. And one of his younger brothers is former Gov. Chris Sununu, who won election and re-election to four two-year terms steering the Granite State.

    But the Republican Party has dramatically changed since the former senator last ran for office 17 years ago. The GOP, under the firm control of President Donald Trump and his America First agenda and MAGA movement, has been transformed from a business-orientated platform into a more populist party.

    Asked if there’s still room for an old-school fiscal conservative in Trump’s GOP, Sununu said, “good decision-making, good leadership, never goes out of style. Standing up for your state, standing up for your neighbors and your friends, and the things that make New Hampshire strong never goes out of style. Being an effective voice never goes out of style.”

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    But some of Sununu’s past criticisms of Trump could come back to hurt him if he joins a Republican primary that already includes former Sen. Scott Brown and state Sen. Dan Innis, who are both showcasing their support for the president.

    Sununu, along with then-Gov. Chris Sununu, endorsed former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, as she battled Trump for the nomination.

    And on the eve of the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, the former senator wrote an opinion piece titled “Donald Trump is a loser,” that ran in the New Hampshire Union Leader, the state’s largest daily newspaper.

    “@JohnSununu was the original ‘Never Trumper,’” Brown charged in a social media post this month. “He’s going to have to explain that.”

    Brown endorsed Trump ahead of his 2016 New Hampshire primary victory, which launched him toward the GOP presidential nomination and ultimately the White House. Brown later served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand during Trump’s first term.

    And Innis claims that he’s the most pro-Trump candidate in the race.

    Asked if he could win a Republican primary race that could turn into a Trump loyalty test, Sununu said “the real question is, can you be effective? Can you work with other members of Congress? Can you work with this White House? Can you provide the kind of leadership it takes to get things done? And I know I can do that.”

    “If there’s a primary, I’ve seen them before. I’ve been through them before,” he added. “I’m very comfortable with where we are today, and over the next few weeks, I’ll continue to get people’s perspective, put together a good team, make sure we have a winning message and make a decision in October.”

    Trump, whose endorsement in Republican primaries is extremely influential, has remained neutral to date. 

    And the president may be willing to overlook Sununu’s past jabs.

    Earlier this year, when Chris Sununu flirted with a Senate bid after leaving office, Trump urged him to run.

    The younger Sununu, who was Haley’s top supporter and surrogate in New Hampshire, repeatedly criticized Trump during the 2024 Republican presidential primaries.

    Trump told reporters in April that he had met with the former governor in the Oval Office and that he’d “support him fully.”

    “He’s been very nice to me over the last year or so,” Trump added. “I hope he runs. I think he’ll win that seat.” 

    The national Republican strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, said that “aside from his famous last name, Sununu is a serious candidate with the ability to fundraise and appeal to New Hampshire’s unique politics. All other candidates — announced or considering — will have a very difficult time against Chris Pappas next November.”

    Asked about trying to earn Trump’s support, Sununu said, “I’d certainly love to have support from across the spectrum, that includes the president.”

    But he added that “at the end of the day, this is about building support in New Hampshire, providing the right leadership for New Hampshire and the right message for New Hampshire.”

  • Trump pick for UN aviation office has long history donating to Dems, Nikki Haley

    Trump pick for UN aviation office has long history donating to Dems, Nikki Haley

    The nominee President Donald Trump tapped to serve as ambassador to a United Nations office charged with overseeing global aviation standards has a checkered tax history and background donating to Democrats and political opponents of the president, a Fox News Digital review of the nominee’s public records found. 

    The White House and Trump allies, however, have doubled down in support of the nominee, saying he will assist the administration in “ushering in the Golden Age of aviation.” 

    Jeffrey Anderson was tapped to lead the International Civil Aviation Organization in July, when the White House published a list of nominations to fill various roles, from the International Civil Aviation Organization ambassadorship to director of the Mint to membership with the National Labor Relations Board. Anderson is a U.S. Navy veteran who worked as a commercial airline captain for more than 34 years, retiring from that role earlier in 2025, according to his LinkedIn. 

    The International Civil Aviation Organization is a U.N. office based in Montreal that is charged with overseeing international aviation standards, including issues related to safety, navigation and environmental protection. The role had sat vacant for the past three years, when the former ambassador, pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, stepped down in 2022. 

    Sullenberger gained widespread applause in 2009, when the US Airways pilot landed Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after a bird strike disabled both engines — an event known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

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    Anderson is a former Delta Air Lines pilot whose nomination drew ire from the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents nearly 80,000 pilots across the U.S. and Canada, arguing his “only” qualification was supporting an effort to raise the mandatory pilot retirement age. 

    The union opposes increasing the mandatory retirement from 65 years of age to 67, arguing it “would leave the United States as an outlier in the global aviation space and create chaos on pilot labor, and international and domestic flight operations,” the group’s statement in July read.

    Fox News Digital took a look back at Anderson’s political campaign contributions and found he donated to a handful of Democratic candidates often hostile to Trump and his policies. 

    He also made a handful of small dollar donations to Republican Nikki Haley during the 2024 campaign cycle, when the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. ran against Trump, whom she slammed as “unhinged” while on the campaign trail before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump as the GOP nominee for president. 

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    Anderson contributed at least $200 to Haley during the month of February 2024, when Haley and Trump were the only GOP candidates left in the primary race, according to four small dollar donations recorded by the Federal Election Commission. 

    The former pilot also donated to Shawn Harris, the former Democratic opponent who tried to unseat Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in the 2024 cycle. The $100 donation was made in September 2024 through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s massive fundraising arm, and earmarked for the Democratic candidate who ultimately failed to oust Greene. 

    Harris’ campaign included slamming Trump and characterizing him as a politician who acts as a “king” and threatens democracy. 

    Anderson’s political donations to Democrats stretch back years, including in 2017 when he donated to Democrats, such as former House candidate Dan Ward in Virginia and former Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon — both of whom received $250 contributions from Anderson that year, according to election records. 

    Both Democrats had slammed Trump and his policies across his first administration, including DeFazio declaring after the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol that: “Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy, national security and the safety of all Americans. He must be removed from office immediately.” 

    The former Delta pilot has also landed in hot water over unpaid taxes, Fox News Digital found. IRS records show Anderson and his wife had over $426,000 in unpaid federal taxes across seven years from 2013 to 2019, raising concerns that his financial responsibility. The taxes were related to a “small business,” according to the forms. 

    “Jeffrey Anderson isn’t a Trump Republican at all; he’s a liberal sleeper who slipped through the cracks of PPO (Presidential Personnel Office),” a former Trump official told Fox Digital of Anderson’s political donations and tax history. 

    When approached for comment on the previous donations and tax issues, Anderson told Fox News Digital that at “the very least, some of your information is factually incorrect or tendered well out of context.” Anderson did not respond when asked for additional details on what was “factually incorrect.”

    “At the very least, some of your information is factually incorrect or tendered well out of context. I am fully supportive of President Trump and his America First agenda. I have been fully vetted by the White House and appreciate the approval of the President, House Aviation Chair Troy Nehls and House T&I Chair Sam Graves, among others. I look forward to advancing American interests as the next Permanent Representative to ICAO,” he wrote in a direct message on LinkedIn to Fox Digital in August, while adding that Trump is seeking to “move effectively forward in a space negligently left vacant by Biden.”

    When asked about Anderson’s tax history and donations to Democrats and Trump opponents, a White House official told Fox Digital: “Jeffrey Alderson is highly qualified to serve as America’s ambassador to the ICAO, and he is a great choice to represent the President’s America First foreign policy agenda in the international aviation community.”

    Fox News Digital additionally reached out to the State Department, which helps manage the vetting of potential ambassador nominees, for comment and was directed the White House’s statement. 

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    The former pilot himself also floated a run for political office more than a decade ago in Georgia as a Democrat, according to a local Georgia news report that called him “prospective Democratic Congressional candidate Jeff Anderson.” In an opinion piece published that same year, titled “The sinking Democratic Party in Georgia is bad news for everyone,” Anderson was described as a “a 2010 Independent candidate for the U.S. House in Georgia’s 11th District.” 

    While old social media posts on X show Anderson celebrated former President Biden’s 2012 DNC speech at the time as “wonderful American message: major concepts, not petty; Democratic, but not commercially political.” While other tweets targeted the NRA and celebrated how Anderson “politely but firmly faced” NRA representatives and gun manufacturers on “sensible policy ideals” back in 2023, according to a review of the X account @JeffAndersonPAI that ceased activity back in 2014.  

    In addition to the White House defending Anderson’s nomination, Texas Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, who serves as chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, told Fox Digital that Anderson will help usher in “the Golden Age of aviation” under the Trump administration. 

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    “As Chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, I have complete confidence in Jeffrey Anderson to serve as ambassador to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO),” Nehls said in comment to Fox Digital in August. “Mr. Anderson served as a naval aviator and has more than three decades of experience as a pilot for Delta. He is, without a doubt, qualified to represent the United States of America at ICAO, where his first-hand experience with the aviation industry will play a crucial role in advancing President Trump’s mission of ushering in the Golden Age of aviation.”

    A board member of a pilots group called Experienced Pilots Advancing Aviation Safety, added that he fully backs Anderson’s nomination, citing his honesty and credentials as an airline captain. The Experienced Pilots Advancing Aviation Safety, which endorsed Anderson’s nomination, also advocates raising the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots, arguing experienced pilots lead to safer skies and can mentor the next generation instead of “forced retirements of America’s most experienced aviators,” according to its website. 

    “I feel 100% confident in Captain Anderson’s honesty and professional credentials. Having flown aircraft around the world in international operations for the past 40 years in the Marine Corps and Delta Airlines, and my working with and in association with ICAO and IATA, I feel Jeff would be a perfect fit for this position as it seems the president of the United States does also,” the board member told Fox Digital in emailed comment earlier in August. 

    International aviation rules currently prohibit airline pilots older than 65 from flying. Global airline groups such as the International Air Transport Association has called on the ICAO to consider raising the international pilot retirement age to 67. The UN General Assembly will convene on Sept. 23, with the ICAO expected to consider the proposal, Reuters reported on Thursday. 

    Anderson’s nomination was sent to the Senate in July, and was then referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. The nomination is currently awaiting final confirmation proceedings.