Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Republican Presidential Nomination with Doug Burgum

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

Sharon is joined by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to hear directly from the Republican Presidential candidate ahead of the presidential debate. In a time of cold wars, culture wars, and economic unknowns, Burgum makes the argument that it’s time for the federal government to refocus its priorities. Burgum also took the position that it’s time to “get away from the celebrity President and get back to the idea that the President is an operating job, and needs to focus on the job description.” Burgum and Sharon discuss how the Republican nominee will need to win over some political independents, who often fall into the category of the exhausted majority. Gov. Burgum explains why he believes his experience in both the public and private sectors make him the ideal candidate to do just that. Host/Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Guest: Governor Doug Burgum Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you joining me today. My guest today is North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who is actually running for president. And I invited him on the show because I think it's a great thing to be able to get to know some of the candidates before we choose who to vote for. And even if you are not a Republican voter, it's useful information to know who's running, what they're about, what their ideas are. What if they become president someday? Here is your chance to hear directly from them. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am really excited to be chatting with North Dakota Governor and Presidential Candidate Doug Burgum. Thank you so much for being here. Sharon, so great to be with you and congratulations on your success. And thanks to

all your listeners for listening in today. Well, you are on the show in part because some of my listeners were like, you really need to have him on the show. And they went to great lengths to like, Sharon, you got to make this connection happen. Here's who to contact. Like people are very enthusiastic to hear from you. And so I really appreciate you taking time out of not just running for president, but also governing the great state of North Dakota, my neighboring state. First of all, when you first ran for governor,

you had no political experience, and yet you won quite handily. And when you ran for re-election, you won re-election quite handily. So obviously you have a pretty good gig going as the governor of a state. Why run for president and why do it now? Well, I think it's pretty simple. One of the things I learned from the private sector where we also had great success, I grew up in a small town of 300 people in North Dakota and had this great life growing up, but learned all the things that all of us learn in small towns. And my dad passed away when I was a freshman in high school. He was a World War II Navy vet. My mom, she was a rock and she was just, she was amazing. She, you know, had to go back to work with three kids. For my dad, I learned about service and sacrifice and my mom, like everything else. I mean, she was just brilliant and capable and powerful and

such an inspiration. And she ended up living another 34 years after dad passed and was just, again, taught us everything we needed to know about, you know, living with grace and gratitude. So, so grateful for my parents for all that. And then when I was in my twenties, I'd gotten a little bit of farm ground for my dad, 160 acres. People know in North Dakota, that's not enough to farm on and dry land, dry land weed farming, you need thousands of acres. But I had this little piece of farm ground and I literally bet the farm I mortgaged that start be the seed capital for a startup called Great Plains Software. And I joined a group of about 10 young folks and we ended up building

that company to a global success story, 2000 team members from over 220 small towns across North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota. We loved hiring small town kids that grew up farming and ranching and on dairy farms and folks that knew what work was, knew what integrity was, knew what character was. And we built a company was on the, you know, a hundred best places to work. We were the smallest company on that for a number of years with a bunch of Fortune 500 companies, but just an amazing, amazing what you can do. And it was 2016. And with that success that we had had, focusing on giving back to the community and where I grew up and to Fargo, understanding that to attract talent and capital, you had to have healthy, vibrant cities. And what could we do? And I found out like how much the state of North Dakota was spending on education every year was

the first thing that hit me was, you know, a billion dollars a year. And I thought, well, there's no amount of giving back or philanthropy. And I came home one day and said to Catherine, I said, hey, I'm thinking about throwing my hat in the ring for a governor. And she was like, wow, okay, that's not a direction I thought we'd be talking about. And there's a lot of reasons that people choose not to get into politics today because it's just pretty ugly and divisive. But I also assured her, she was like, I'm not sure. I never thought I'd be first lady of anything. And I said, well, don't worry. We're down in the polls like 69 to 10. And I said, hey, don't worry. The primary is-

Don't worry about it. Don't worry, you'll never be first lady. I'm not going to win anyway. So you don't have to spend any time worrying about that. But then as you noted, we won that and went on to, you know, win election in 16 and 20 by the largest margins of any of the gubernatorial races in the country in those years. And I think your question was why run for president, there was a bigger decision to actually run for governor because that was the leap from the private sector to the public sector. But now as a, having been a small business owner, having run large global businesses and having been governor, I can see all that every day where the federal government is just out of its lane and it's, you know, big footing families and parents and small businesses and large businesses and states.

And the 10th Amendment basically says it reaffirms that there's a specific set of things that the federal government is supposed to do. And then the rest is reserved to the states, comma, or to the people. I mean, there's things that parents should be deciding. And so the decision, you know, on this race was like, wow, when we looked at the challenges that are facing our country, you know, we're in a Cold War with China, we're in an actual proxy war with Russia. Our economy is really in tough shape right now in terms of, you know, interest rates at a 22-year high, the credit, you know, of the nation just being downgraded. Lots of things going the wrong way on the economy. And then in national security, you know, we've got all kinds of threats. I mean, the world is a pretty unstable place, largely because of our energy policy is empowering dictators. And so we just

said, hey, these are things that if we do this right, this will improve every American life. We can bring out the best of America. Because if you watch cable news, and maybe thankfully only a small percentage of Americans do, but if you watch cable news and maybe thankfully only a small percentage of Americans do. But if you watch that, I mean, all you hear about is everything that's wrong. And when we know in towns like you that you grew up and I grew up in every day, there's great things, you know, neighbors helping neighbors and all the things that we consider the best of America happening. We need executive branch leaders that understand that they work for everyone, not just for the people that may have voted for them. We work for everyone. And so we brought that attitude that we work for everyone.

So why are we running? We're running to improve every American life. That's our mission and that's our purpose. You're so right. And I have made this point many times that even if you did not vote for that person, that governor, that congressperson, they still work for you. They still represent you. It is still their job. It's still your job to govern every citizen of North Dakota, even if you did not earn their vote the first or second time. You still are their governor. And I think it's a really

important mindset for a leader to have, that we plow the roads for everybody. We have clean drinking water for everybody. We provide quality public schools for everybody, not just the people who voted for me. And I think too often that point is lost in American politics today, that like, well, forget you. You didn't vote for me. Forget you. You get nothing. You're so right, Sharon. I think, you know, different branches have different approaches. I mean, if you're in Congress, I mean, you put on your jersey. It's very hard sometimes for people in Congress to vote against their party. So you put on the red jersey, the blue jersey, and then you end up kind of lobbing bombs at each other. But the executive branch, once you're elected, it's not about red or blue. It's about red, white, and blue. You

said you got to serve everybody. And that's the great thing. I'm an operating guy. All I've ever done is run businesses and operate businesses. And so running government is exciting and interesting to me because there's so much waste in government. There's so many things that we can do that can drive efficiencies that just make everything better. I want to go back to something you just said, which is about energy policy. North Dakota is an important state in terms of energy production in the United States. And yet you have ideas about being carbon neutral, signing legislation about carbon capture technology. And I want to talk about that in a quick second. But the thing I wanted to go back to first is about your feeling that the world is less stable, less safe because of the United States' energy

policy. You have perhaps a unique take on this issue. So I would love to hear from you exactly how the United States' energy policy contributes to a less safe world? How are we empowering dictators with our energy policy, in your opinion? Well, the easy one is Exhibit A, Sharon, which is Putin invading Ukraine. There's no way Putin invades Ukraine if he doesn't have all of Western Europe, which is all of our traditional allies from World War II forward, completely dependent on Russian energy. And then, of course, he knew that when he made that invasion, it would drive the price up. So the price went through the roof. He made bank like no one has ever made. And I don't just mean the country. Yeah, he's like one of the wealthiest men in the world. And so when we're sanctioning Russia,

it's not impacting him. He has, you know, like $70 trillion. I mean, I'm making up that number, but it's not impacting him and his beautiful palaces. Yeah, no, it may be $70 billion. And right, he is one of the richest in the world. But I mean, they have a fancy word oligarch, but he and his cronies are all like mob bosses that are driving this. And of course, when we did belatedly put sanctions on Russian oil, but we did that as the United States and a few countries followed us. But some of the other major consumers of oil didn't, including China, which imports 10 million barrels of oil a day. So we put sanctions on Russian oil as a way to, quote, penalize Putin, which isn't penalizing Putin at all. And then he's become China's gas station. China imports 10 million barrels of oil a day, largest in the world. Well, they're

getting their imports at 20% off, sometimes 30% off the daily market. And I know that the farmers in Iowa and Minnesota, North Dakota, they'd love to be getting diesel tomorrow off at 20, 30% off the pump. But so our policies are literally enabling dictators. And then of course, President Xi in China, this is an iron-fisted dictator. And then we're supporting them not just by giving them low-cost Russian oil, but the Biden energy policy that says, basically, we're going to go all electric, but we're going to buy our solar panels from China. We're going to buy our batteries from China. China controls 85% of the rare earth minerals that we need to produce a battery in this world. We're just switching OPEC

for Sinopec. But China, they're a rising global power, second largest economy in the world. Why would we choose to be completely dependent on them when those solar panels and those batteries are also being made in factories that are being powered by coal? Because China's opening up a coal plant every two weeks. They keep increasing their amount of CO2 admissions while we're lowering ours. Any of the climate accords that they've signed on to, they don't even have to start lowering until at least 2030. And then they've got till 2060. So basically, they're greenlighted to keep doing what they're doing, which is putting a lot of CO2 in the air, but giving their country a lot of cheap energy, which is subsidizing what they can do, you know,

as they build out the world's largest military. So it is literally our energy policy is increasing our dependence on foreign dictators. It's an empowering foreign dictators. And then it's hurting Americans because Americans are paying too much for our energy here in the United States. What exactly do you think the solution to that would be? I mean, let's say somebody is listening to this and they're like, yeah, okay, I see that. I see what you're saying. What we're doing is actually making it easier for China to pollute the environment. What we're doing is empowering China to be able to continue their expansion to what they would hope would be global dominance. Let's say somebody is listening to this and they're like, yeah, I get that. I see it. But they also care about the climate. They care about climate

change. They care about the natural disasters that are occurring around the world at like a crazy, unprecedented levels. They worry about the impact of climate change on the world as a whole. And what would you say to somebody who feels like, okay, yeah, I get it. A, that is true. Dictators, bad, don't approve, don't like it. But also B, don't like climate change, don't like natural disasters. What would you say to somebody who understands the tension between those two very real issues? I'd say move to North Dakota. very real issues. I'd say move to North Dakota. Partly because, you know, we're the only state, we've set a goal of being carbon neutral by 2030,

but we've said we're going to achieve that, I mean, with no new mandates and no new regulations. It's actually innovation that allows you to achieve that goal as opposed to regulation. Regulation is backward looking and increases costs for everybody innovation looks forward and it lowers costs for everybody and it comes up with the solutions that we need i mean you're proposing an and versus an or question which is the right question sharon that's what we can do in the united states we can do and you know we don't have to empower dictators and we can take co2 out of the out of the air and in north dakota we've got two ethanol plants in North Dakota right now that are capturing all the CO2 off of those plants, storing it safely underground. This is an opportunity, again, for liquid fuels that are low-carbon, low-intensity, carbon-free fuels. And we're going to need that. We're going to need that for flying airplanes across the Pacific.

You and I aren't getting on an airplane that's run by batteries flying to Tokyo anytime soon, because the weight ratio of those batteries is just so high. You need so many of them. And batteries aren't on Moore's Law. Moore's Law is the thing that's driven the software and the computer industry for the last 40 years. And the chips get twice as fast at half the price every 18 months. Batteries don't work that way. Batteries are getting better at sort of 1% or 2% a year. That's what's been going on for the last 30 or 40 years. The physics don't

allow them to get better than that. But we don't have a solution anytime in the near future where we're going to have battery-operated aircraft. We need liquid fuels that have low carbon. The Midwest is going to be where that's going to come from, from our great ag states. So we have an opportunity with innovation, and we have an opportunity to net CO2 oil and gas through enhanced oil recovery. We've got a company in North Dakota that's doing that today. They put more CO2 down into the ground that forces the oil up. The CO2 stays down, but there's more, more CO2 stays down than the barrel of oil produces. So that gut company at Denver is, you know, greener than Patagonia using the same formulas if you want to have, you know, low carbon fuels. So there's a way that we can do both of those things. But we also have to have, you know, permitting reform because, you know, at the time of the Russian invasion, we were offloading 400,000 barrels of oil a day into New England. people in New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine, they're all paying too much to heat their homes.

And we're using dirty Russian heating oil when we could be using clean U.S. natural gas from Pennsylvania up to New England, short step away. But if you're going to have people protesting and you can't build natural gas pipelines in this country, which would absolutely lower the amount of carbon that's being a thing. I mean, getting infrastructure built in this country that makes sense for these transitions over the next couple of decades, because no country has reduced their CO2 more than the U.S., but there's more that we can do. We just have to stop protesting the stuff that would actually help the quickest, the soonest, and the fastest. And so what you think is one of the things that would help the fastest is being able to move these sort of liquid fuels around the country more quickly and efficiently via pipeline

systems. Am I understanding you correctly? Well, absolutely. And I mean, America's got amazing pipeline systems today. It's what's enabled the entire last 70 years of post-World War growth in our country that we've been able to do that. But suddenly, somehow, there's gotten this idea that if you stop the transportation of lower carbon fuels or CO2 itself, you know, to be stored safely underground, that somehow that's helping the environment. And it's an attack on liquid fuels and any attack on liquid fuels. Of course, you know, China loves that. Russia loves that. I mean, why wouldn't you, you know, great, shut down the U.S. energy industry and we'll buy our batteries from China and we'll buy our oil and gas for the next 30 years from Russia. They would love that.

And in an open society, and what you've commented in the past about what can you or can't believe and on social media, we know, I know as a governor that China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, every day they get up and people go to work, and they go to work on fake accounts in the United States. They go to work on hacking into our schools, our universities, our tribes, our cities, and our state, trying to get at information, some of it vital security information for our country. That's happening every day. We're at cyber war today. We're in a cold war today. This is happening. And I just think it's in completely, it's a complete economic sense for all of those competitors of ours to try to get the U S energy industry shut down, to have it become the enemy of the people in, you know, the, the pry of the people in our country, because if they do, they win. I mean, so they don't even

have, they don't have to even launch a ship. They just win by getting the U S to turn against ourself and give up the one thing that we actually need. And we need it, and the world needs it, because again, we produce it cleaner, safer, smarter than anywhere else in the world. If you care about the environment, you'd want to have every ounce of energy produced here in the United States. Visa and OpenTable are dishing up something new.

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milk production. Or food safety, producing milk that meets 42 requirements. And animal care, that means caring for every cow. ProAction sets standards of excellence. That's what's behind the Blue Cow logo. Dairy Farmers of Canada. Blue Cow logo. Dairy Farmers of Canada. I want to talk a little bit about the Republican primary, because there are, you know, I think whoever the Republican nominee will be is going to have ample opportunity to sort of differentiate themselves from the Democratic nominee, who is very presumably going to be Joe Biden at this juncture. And so I want to talk a little bit about what sets you apart from the bevy of other people who are running. We have a broad section of candidates to choose from, and the Republican primary debate is coming up. What makes you different? Why should somebody who's a Republican primary voter, why should they pick your name out of all of the options?

Well, I think the bottom line is two things. One is mission. I said earlier, we're on a mission to improve every American life. And we know that we can do that by turning around our economy, turning around our energy policy, turning around our national security because they're all intertwined. We know that we can do that. So that would be number one, understand why we're running and that when we do that, we can bring out the best of America. And I mean every American life. I don't just mean folks that voted for us. We can improve every American life. And then you say, well, you know, if we have somebody in the White House that needs to understand the economy is changing, the world is changing. The world is dynamic and interrelated.

And yet we also need someone who's grounded and has the character and integrity and proven leadership skills. So I would say one of the things that differentiates is I'm the only one on the stage in either party that grew up in a town of 300 people. And every job I had working on the farm, working on the ranch, working at the grain elevator, working as a chimney sweep to pay my way through college. I mean, these were all jobs where I took a shower at the end of the day, not the beginning of the day. I think it would be wonderful to have somebody in the White House who understands what working people are actually

going through, that understands the impact of inflation, the impact of high gas prices, and what it means to them and their families. So that's part of it. But then I spent my whole career, even though I grew up in agriculture and now I'm having a chance to govern a big ag and a big energy state, I spent my career, three decades, building global software companies with great success. And I had people, you know, with customers in 132 countries. I had people working for me around the world. I had people working for me that literally didn't have the right to vote. And I understand what makes America great. And again, when I think every day about the gratitude for the people in our state, in this country, whether it's the people that get up and go to work and teach under tough conditions, whether it's our first know, our first responders, whether it's the, you know, the men and women in blue that are working to keep our city safe. Or like this

last week when I was down at the border with North Dakota National Guard troops, young men and women from small towns across North Dakota that are trying to make sure that our border is secure and trying to stop the fentanyl that's coming into our country, which 220,000 people have died. I mean, that's four and a half times what we lost in Vietnam. We've lost in the last two years of overdose deaths, and 70% of those are fentanyl poisonings. So there's things which we know touch every community and touch every family that we can make a difference on. And I think with the technology changing every job, every industry, every company, it needs

to change government. Having someone who has experience in that, that knows how to take cost out. I mean, we took $1.7 billion out of a $6 billion budget in North Dakota for the general fund and all the trains kept running on time. And part of that was because that's what I've always done. When you're in the tech business, you got to sell a product tomorrow that works better and costs less. And the way you do that is constantly working on delivering better services and better product and then doing it at a lower cost. That's all I've ever done. And I know that that's one thing that hasn't been going on in the government. Would love to get after that because with the 2 million federal employees, I mean, my goodness, we can reduce a lot of the cost to federal

government. And at a time when we have 10 million jobs open in the private sector, returning some of those federal employees back to the private sector would be lower the cost to government and help the economy. It's a win-win for everybody. So I think there's plenty of differentiation. I don't think anybody should be in the White House that hasn't had private sector experience. We've seen how that's working in the past when we've elected senators to the White House that don't have any private sector experience. I don't think it's a good call for the country. And someone like myself who knows I was making payroll every two weeks since I was in my mid-20s, you know, I know what it's like to cut my own pay to make sure that the team members can get paid at the end of those payrolls when times were tough, when we were trying to build our business. And it's essential. We have

to have someone who understands how the real economy works. Somebody understands how the global economy works. And somebody who understands, you know, how these things all interrelate in this, you know, dangerous world that we're in right now. One of the things that I know you know, you're going to have to win over some independent voters. That's just the way it goes. You're going to have to win over some independent voters. That's just the way it goes. You're going to have to get some swing states to vote for you. And one of the things that I hear frequently is that independent voters are exhausted by the relentless number of culture war issues. That culture war issues are not actually improving their lives.

Let's say somebody's successful in passing a piece of legislation. Nobody wakes up the next morning being like, wow, my life is so much better because such and such person passed a law on a culture war issue. I want to give you a chance to talk to somebody who's maybe an independent voter who was like, can we do something that actually makes a difference in my life, as opposed to spending all of our time talking about woke and talking about which books can be in the kindergarten classes? Talk to those voters for a moment. What would you say to people who are sick of culture wars? Well, I would say I agree with them. I know that these are wildly important to some people, but it goes back to what I view the job and the role of the president is a pretty narrow one. And it was designed when this country was founded that the states created the federal government, not the other way around. There was a limited set of things the federal government is supposed to do, the rest delegated to the states or to the people. And I think the place for some of these discussions around culture wars has to happen

locally. I mean, at the school board level, the city council level, I mean, some of it, you know, shouldn't even be decided by the state. But for sure, there are some of these things that should be delegated back to the states. That's where they belong. And that's why, Sharon, you heard during this interview, I haven't even brought it up once. I mean, woke in the town I grew up in, woke is what you did at 5 a.m. to start the day. But the rooster did. It woke me up. Exactly. So it was like, and I just think that, again, any time a president of the United States spending time on some of those issues does not make any sense relative to the big issues that are facing us in this country. Would you support any kind of national abortion ban or national anti-trans legislation for, you know, like minors or anything of that nature?

Or is your position like, nope, I'm not touching this at the federal level? Yeah, no, my position, I've been clear, is that no, I would not sign a federal abortion ban. I think, again, these were a decision that said it's moved to the states, and what works in New York would never work in North Dakota and vice versa. And I think you're going to have to get sorted out at the state or local level, all of these issues. But it's not the place for the president to be involved in some of these decisions, because any minute the president's spending on that is time that's not spent on the economy, which does affect every single American. Energy policy affects every single American, whether they know it or not, because it's built into the price of every product they

have. And then all of that's tied to national security, which we know is affecting every American. So from being a CEO for 30 years, one of the things I know is if you're a CEO, if you're trying to make decisions or get involved in stuff that frontline team members can do, you're never going to be successful. You're never going to have an organization that achieves its full potential. People that work for you aren't going to reach their full potential. Part of leadership is understanding what the job is and what the focus is. And we got to get away from the celebrity president and get back to the idea that the president's an operating job and needs to focus on the job description and what the things are and just move past some of this, at least in terms of the president. But divisiveness is a big business in America.

It's a huge business, very profitable for cable channels, very profitable for social media networks. But I'm with you exactly that there's a group out there, the exhausted majority. And I hope they're listening. We're running for you because we're running to make sure that we can have this country. If we do the job in the executive branch, we will improve every American life. If we do the job in the executive branch, we will improve every American life. Very quickly, what would you like to say to the 1.2 million or more people who are going to be listening to this? What would you like them to know about you?

What would you like them to know or consider when they are choosing who to vote for? Well, the first thing I'd want your listeners to know is the gratitude from Catherine and myself. Is she ready to be first lady of the United States? Well, I'll tell you, she should be on and tell her own story. I would love to have her. For all of you. Yeah. You should. I mean, part of her fear about when I came home and said, you know, Hey, I want to run for governor. Part of her fear was, Hey, at that point in time, she would have been in recovery from addiction for about 15 years

at that point in time, but from high school for the next, you know, 20 plus years, she really struggled. Uh, and addiction is a, you know, it's a brain disease. It's a tough, tough thing. It's a relapsing disease. And she had quite the wild ride. She never sought help when she was, you know, suffering from the disease of addiction. And she didn't talk about her recovery when she was in recovery because of the shame and stigma. And when after we won and she became the accidental first lady and I was the accidental governor. And I, you know, I say that from what we said at the beginning of the show, when no one expected us to be there, we weren't, we didn't even have the support of our own party at the time. We were running as true outsiders. She just said, Hey, I, as first lady, I'm going to use my face and voice to help reduce the shame and stigma of addiction.

And she has touched lives. She's changed lives. She has saved lives. She'd be great to have you on her show. And I'm just so fortunate to have been around strong women my whole life. My great-grandmother was one of the first pioneer women in North Dakota. I mean, literally the first woman in the Dakota Territory with a college education. She won elected office in the 1880s when she couldn't vote for herself as the superintendent of public schools in Burley County, which is where Bismarck is. My grandmother followed in her footsteps and

was the first female at North Dakota State University in the first class back in 1890. And then my mom, who I talked about, who went on to have an amazing career in healthcare and education and business and was a huge inspiration to all of us after dad passed away. And so, I mean, I've been shrouded. And when Great Plains, when we had 2000 team members and we got acquired by Microsoft for over a billion dollars, we were the only tech company in the world that was 51% women. And so we're fortunate now, we're blessed to have an amazing daughter who's off on an amazing career. So I'm grateful to Catherine and I'm grateful to all your listeners that are listening in today, because by listening, they're actually engaged in trying to change the

process. And if people don't get engaged, we're going to end up with the same outcomes we've had before. And I think one thing Americans can all agree on is that the highest thing that polls in the country is, would you like to see a different matchup than we had in 2020? And that's one of the reasons we're running is to give Americans that choice and that opportunity for someone that does what I've always done. We North Dakota, we say we're going to treat taxpayers like customers because that's what they are. If you're a taxpayer, you're paying for government, you're the customer. All of our orientation is to deliver government services and treat the taxpayers like customers. And it doesn't matter whether it's you getting your driver's license,

you know, instead of driving two hours and get an appointment, sit in a waiting room and, you know, doing all that stuff, you know, hey, can we just do this online so people don't have in their busy lives, don't have to, you know, drive and sit in a waiting room. I mean, let's have the experience working with government be the same experience you work with with your favorite online company. And there's just all kinds of ways to take cost out and drive that. So I would just say to your listeners,

again, if you want someone who's gonna be fighting for everybody, not just the people that voted for them, if you want someone who's gonna focus on the issues that really matter for our kids and our grandkids to make sure that this country presents a future, an aspirational future with the kind of opportunity that all of us had growing up, then go to DougBergham.com and learn more and know that we're going to be out there fighting for you. Thanks so much for your time today. I really

loved getting to know you better. I loved hearing some of your thoughts on some of these issues. And I'm just really grateful that you made time in your schedule so that everybody who's listening to this can get to know you better too. Well, I'm grateful for entrepreneurs like you, Sharon, that took an idea and built it into something amazing. And because there's so much misinformation out there today, having someone like you that's willing to take the time and listeners that are willing to invest the time to learn more in depth about people and the issues, that really matters for our country. And so grateful that you've moved beyond soundbites and into substance and you're a difference maker. So thank you. Thanks, Doug.

If you want to know more about Doug Burgum's candidacy, you can go to DougBurgum.com. Thanks for joining us. The show is hosted and executive produced by me, Sharon McMahon. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you could leave us a review or share this episode on social media, Those things help podcasters out so much. Thanks for being here today.