The Dispatch Podcast - The Doug Burgum Candidacy

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Economy, energy, and national security are the three major platforms Governor Doug Burgum is running on for his GOP presidential bid. Burgum joins David on The Dispatch Podcast to talk about the state of his campaign and: -Israel-Hamas war -Regimes going nuclear -World War III prospects -Pulling out of Afghanistan -Containing China and US policy to help Taiwan -Energy policy -State of Burgum’s campaign -Ignore national polls? -Trump lost the election -January 6th outlook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca.com. Did you lock the front door?

Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web.

Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Thanks so much for joining us for another edition of the Dispatch podcast. I'm David Drucker, a senior writer here at the dispatch,

and on this episode, we've got North Dakota Governor Doug Bergam. Bergam, as you might be aware, is running for president, and he was nice enough to stop by dispatch headquarters here in Washington to discuss the state of his underdog campaign for the Republican nomination. And not just that, but how he would handle some of the biggest challenges now facing President Joe Biden, the man he wants to force into retirement next year. David, fantastic to be with you and love your headquarters. Thank you so much. We're sparse.

We're kind of like a startup, something you might know something about. Well, this is my first podcast with an F.A. Hayek poster overlooking my shoulder. And so I'm thrilled that you've got a... Yeah, I might win you a vote somewhere. Yeah. Hey, listen, let's jump right in here. You're president of the United States today. What is your response to the Hamas attack on Israel?

I have to almost take a moment to get a breath here because the atrocities that we've all seen, you know, coming across the TV screen is the last couple days is hard to find the words unimaginable, unthinkable. I mean, if you had told me last week that we were going to have stories about babies with their heads being cut off. I mean, it's just hard to get your head around. But it's not, unfortunately, this, given that since we announced on June 7th and have been talking about this since the day we think, which we're running on three things, economy, energy, national security on the national security front, I've been saying since the day we announced that the policies of the Biden administration are destabilizing the world and empowering dictators. And one of those ones that we've empowered the most is the country of Iran. They're the parent company. They're the corporate headquarters. They're the ones that are funding Hamas and Hezbollah.

and when we start doing things like releasing $6 billion of assets to on top of the $10 billion we released in June, on top of the fact that nobody's enforcing any more of the Iranian oil sanctions, which could drive $25 billion of revenue to that country this year as they sell China as China refills their strategic patrol and reserve. At the same time, you know, Biden was draining ours two years ago. It's like at some level, why are we surprised? I mean, you know, we, you know, I've been saying since the day I announced, the reason why Putin invaded Ukraine was because all of Western Europe was tied to Russian energy. I mean, he had complete, complete leverage in that thing. And it's a anyway. So it's just, but in terms of, you know, our response, it has to be a swifter. I mean, I'm appalled by the fact that that Joe Biden yesterday did not mention the word Iran in his remarks. How important is that? Another, because he mentioned, he said, and I'm not.

looking at the quote, to any country thinking of using this to create more peril, to create more mischief, to do to act badly, don't. And he said it again, don't. So how important is it in your view that he didn't say specifically Iran versus any country? Why would the President of the United States be afraid to name the name of the country that's the world's largest sponsor of terrorism? I mean, the known funder of Hezbollah Hamas and other terrorist groups, why would we not be willing to say their name? Well, why? Because, you know, clearly there's been an effort to try to revive the, you know, Obama-Iran nuclear deal in the Biden administration. And then they've been working on it and all these elements that they're doing are trying to do that.

So it's trying to have it both ways. But you can't be trying to cut a deal to help the world's largest sponsor of nuclear or of terrorism get closer to having nuclear weapons. I mean, the thing, that's just insanity. So given that no new president gets to go back in time and create better conditions for their administration, your president today, you've inherited what the Biden administration has done. Now, look, in the coming days, coming weeks and months, President Biden may do things vis-a-vis Iran that you like or you don't like. but just given conditions today, what should Biden do if he were listening to you in response to what happened in Israel and in response to the fact that we believe Iran played a very big hand in what happened?

Well, I think you've got to start taking a look. I said, it's the parent company. You know, you can't just be like, oh, we're going to like try to shut down one of the subsidiaries. I mean, if the parent company is just, they'll just fund somebody else on doing this thing. And the way I always think about this thing is, I mean, it's diplomacy, it's information wars, it's military, and it's economic. And the way to hit Iran the hardest is to go after their source of revenue.

And that's related to their oil production. And, you know, again, crickets, I mean, I mean, cricket says in the sense that nothing was said yesterday. But I would certainly, as your president, I'd be working to figure out a way to shut down their revenue sources because that's what's funding all this terrorism. And it's not in the regime, it's not the people of Iran. It's the regime, you know, that is, you know, got a goal. And it's not, it's not like a territorial dispute. People talk about that.

No, this is a, you know, Hamas believes that Israel doesn't have the right to exist. I mean, this is, this is a, this is genocide. It's not, it's not, oh, you know, our land versus your land and let's two state solution. No, it's a one state solution. And that's when, you know, Israel's wiped off the map. And, and then you got Iran. I mean, they have two things. death to America, death to Israel. That's what they're running on. So we just have to understand that we're up against the face of pure evil. And if you see in terms of, you know, the slaughtering of innocent people in their homes, that's not war.

Should an American president consider preemptively hitting Iranian nuclear weapons facilities, consider preemptively hitting Iranian oil infrastructure in order to, I don't know if it's decapitate the regime, but. but put a vice on the regime's ability to both go nuclear and make money from the sales of energy. As president, I would be asking for all those options. I mean, all those options should be on the table and they should understand that we have the capability to be able to execute against those options. Because if the whole idea of let's give tens and billions of dollars to Iran, let them again get their oil exports, rolling and bring in tens of billions of dollars for that so that they can fund so they can oppress women and fund terrorism around the world. Again, we're doing that because, what, because of some dream that they're going to go slower before they get a nuclear weapon?

I mean, as we sort of appease them, I mean, this is like the Neville Chamberlain Award should go to the Biden administration because if you look at all the things, whether it's the withdrawal from Afghanistan, whether it's what happened with Putin and Ukraine, and now what's happening, with this Iran-sponsored terrorism, you know, all of these things are just moving us closer towards global conflict. I never thought I'd be talking to my kids about World War III, but I started talking to them about it, you know, a year ago, and now here we are moving ever closer to it. Just as an aside, should the U.S. have pulled out of Afghanistan? Was the problem to pull out or just that it was bungled? We should never have pulled out. I mean,

this is, this is in it, you know, keep 2,000, 4,000 troops there. We're still in Korea. We're still in Japan. We're still in Germany. World War II ended 45 years ago. This is the best airbase advanced location in the most troubled area of the world. And we just handed that strategic location. Everyone talks about, oh, we left behind tens of billions of equipment. We did. Yes, we did leave that. That was, you know, uneconomic, foolish, ridiculous. But to give up the strategic location, you know, that people had fought and died for, I mean, the pullout was, again, political. It was like Joe Biden wanted to be able to say that he ended this war and he was trying to get it done before the 20th memorial of 9-11. In North Dakota, we were planning to have as they were

in states around the country honoring those fallen soldiers, including in our case, National Guards, men and women who'd given their lives in the war on terror. And two weeks before that, Joe Biden bungles this withdrawal. And then we're meeting with Gold Star mothers. And there's, oh, my son died in Afghanistan and only because this president decides he's going to pull out with a week's notice. I mean, it's just, it's, it's unthinkable, you know, some of the decisions that have been made in terms of the impact that has on people who've sacrificed their lives for this country. So I'm a Cold War kid, and 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, it would have been expected that a Democratic president would, in fact, want to pull the U.S. out of a long

conflict that didn't seem to have a resolution or an end. But Donald Trump, Joe Biden's predecessor, was also negotiating a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. And his opinion that the U.S. needed to get out of this war and end it regardless of whether or not we wanted was something that had a lot of support on the right. There are a lot of Republican voters that responded to Trump as he said that, that, you know, it's time for us to focus on, you know, investing here at home. It's very similar to Barack Obama's discussions about investing in resources here at home and not spending money overseas, even though he didn't pull the U.S. out of Afghanistan. So what do you say to Republicans who complain that, you know, your opinion represents that, you know, that old guard view that the U.S. needs to be overextended and have its fingers in every part of the world and we're tired of war and that there was no overriding. priority to keep us in Afghanistan. Well, I would just say these are a false tradeoff.

I mean, what's presented to a portion of the American public is that somehow the idea of American first is withdraw, it's isolationism, it's, you know, it's abandon our, you know, friends and allies. I mean, all of that stuff is just, it's not just a false tradeoff. It's false economically. I mean, you know, half of the U.S. economy, the reason we're the most prosperous nation in the world is because of the fact that we have trading partners around the world that we buy and sell to.

I mean, the American economy extends to all of our allies. And if you want to like say America first and then we like close the doors and then everybody in the United States takes half, you know, we take half the GDP we have right now. You know, everybody want to take a 50% lifestyle pay cut if you want to call it that? I don't think so. I mean, people would want to say, hey, we want the next generation to be. more prosperous than ourselves. And so the fact that the truth that we should be making sure the

American people understand is that when America, for America to be safe and prosperous, our allies have to be safe and prosperous. Those two things go hand in hand, and that's the way it's been absolutely since the end of World War II. My dad fought in World War II. You know, that's why we had, we called them the greatest generation because they were out there and they sacrificed their lives for our friends and allies. And then now we've got this crazy stuff. Like I said, you know, my first day in office, we'll be selling energy to our friends and allies. If you care about the environment, you'd want to have all the energy produced here. Sell it to our allies. Don't let him become dependent on, on, you know, Putin's energy. You know, don't let him, you know, don't let a mob boss

and a murderer who's not, we call him a president, but that gives him way too much credit. The guy's worth 75 or 100 billion. He gets a cut off of every barrel of oil. I mean, we're not, we're dealing with a mob boss, not with a president of a country in that sense. And so again, if we have a basic understanding that the idea of, I believe in America first, but America first doesn't mean isolationism and we abandon our friends. America first means that if we've got, if we want to be safe and prosperous, our allies have to be safe and prosperous. I want to discuss Vladimir Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in a moment. But first I want to ask you about China. This is one of my hobby horses when I get a chance to interview presidential contenders.

I can't find a Democrat or Republican these days, at least mainstream, that doesn't believe the U.S. needs to stand up to China, contain China. get tough with China in regard to trade, try to contain China's military expansionism, particularly in the Asia Pacific, but elsewhere. What I want to know is what would you do to contain China? And would you give Taiwan an ironclad guarantee that if they're invaded by China, the U.S. would be there to help them? And if so, how would the U.S. be there to help them? Well, you're asking a question about, there are multiple questions in there. Correct. I'll just say one thing. This is not a something where I've come to recently or as a presidential candidate.

In 1989, when I was a kid building a software company, returning from Australia, I stopped in China. My first trip to China was 1980 as a student. My second one, 1989, as a young entrepreneur business person, I heard that, you know, when I was there, hey, they're selling U.S. software in the street market. I went to the street market. I said, and I've got a startup great plane software in Fargo, North Dakota. We were selling only in U.S. and Canada. We were trying to open up in Australia. We did not have a Chinese version. We didn't have international versions.

We were small little company. We became much larger later. But I stopped there and I said, do you have great plane software? And they said, sure. And I was like, what? And the guy walks me over. A buck, a disc, five and a quarter inch floppy. It could buy stuff.

We were selling for $5,000 a module. you could buy our software for a buck in 1989. They've been stealing every piece of software I've ever made for the last 34 years. So this is a country that cheats on intellectual property. They ignore trade rules. They're not any of these climate agreements that we have with them are completely specious because they're the world's largest polluter. I mean, they emit more CO2 than anyone.

They're open up a coal plant every week. I mean, the idea that somehow we're going to shut down you, us energy and buy all of our batteries from China and that somehow that's going to save the planet. So we've got issues there. And then and then, but you asked, what would I do on day one? No, no, day one? Well, forget day one.

What would be your, your strategy as president, beginning day one, but nothing gets finished on day one to contain China's military expansionism and would you give Taiwan, would you let China know that invading Taiwan would be met with U.S. resistance, not just. the resistance of the island nation? Okay, multiple questions again. I'll keep chipping away. We're in a Cold War with China. We're in a cyber war every day with China. These things are happening every day. The thing that the Biden administration is not understanding right now is China's the world's largest importer of oil and gas, 10 million barrels of oil a day. We've had four cabinet members travel to China. Only one of them actually got a meeting with the

president of China, but they've traveled there. And none of them have talked about using energy is a tool or a weapon or a lever in our negotiations in this Cold War with China. Why is China building the world's largest military? The same reason everybody else does when you're short of natural resources. They are energy, they're energy insecure and they're food insecure. They have to import energy and food every day to feed 1.4 billion people. Of course they're going to build a large navy because they've got to protect the sea lanes for all that oil and gas that's coming into their country. And that, you know, creates a huge threat to America. and you mentioned Taiwan.

I mean, when Biden says, hey, yes, we'll support our friend in Taiwan, but then we say, oh, harpoon missiles, 2028, 2029, as opposed to, like, shipping them there now and then announcing today, oh, we shipped them there yesterday. If you're China, you're going to invade Taiwan before we put in the anti-ship missiles. I mean, they have 360 ships. They have the largest Navy in the world. They not only could cut off Taiwan, have they cut off Taiwan. have they caught off the South China Sea, what happens to, you know, South Korea,

Philippines, Japan. I mean, all of our traditional allies, many of whom are also dependent on energy imports. I mean, Japan's got almost no oil and gas. They import that every day, just like they did. That's how we beat them in World War II was sinking every tanker that was coming into that country. And so this is a, the idea that somehow we can, in the United States, decide that we're going to shut down liquid fuels as a U.S. thing and then become, we're to trade OPEC for SinoPEC at the same time when all of the geopolitical instability is still evolving around the oil industry? I mean, that's still what's happening. And nobody seems to be able to tie these two things together. And it's as plain as any book in history would tell you that.

So you would? Well, I said start selling energy to our friends and allies. Stop buying it from our enemies and use it as a weapon against China. How do you stop China from importing all of his oil and gas? Well, you don't necessarily stop them, but we figure out a way where we have our allies. We make sure that we're exporting oil and gas to get to the Philippines, to get to South Korea, to get to Japan. You know, that would mean, okay, why are we shutting down our production in Alaska as opposed to using that? That's the closest trade route. It could be, and if it's on federal land, they shut it down on federal land and celebrate at a time we have a deficit. When you produce energy on federal land, that can help lower taxes for all Americans.

And it can be fine for the environment. We can do those things. Right. So I'm not arguing any of that. And maybe I'm just missing something. But look, you have a country that takes the long view, right? It's not going to decommission its military and it's not going to pull back from its expansion in the South China Sea, which is done already by building these manmade islands out there. It is not going to stop threatening Taiwan or believing that Taiwan is a renegade province that belongs a part of China.

And given President Xi and his concerns about his legacy, because he won't live forever, your president in January of 2025, what is U.S. policy vis-a-vis Chinese threats to invade Taiwan to reintegrate it into the mainland? And what steps do you take beyond overhauling U.S. energy policy, which is not insignificant, so that China does not feel like it has a free hand to threaten its neighbors. Well, the way that you stop aggression is with deterrence. And the Biden administration has failed on that in Ukraine. We've failed on that now in Israel. I mean, we just have not, they're not putting the deterrence in place.

And so, again, you know, again, harpoon missiles. put deterrence in place in Taiwan that would make the cost of China thinking about taking that island to be so expensive that they would think, hey, maybe I shouldn't do that. And what, oh, that's just the military piece? Oh, well, what about the economic piece? Oh, well, we can disrupt their energy and food supplies. And then they have an issue because he's got an issue domestically called demographics. I mean, they've got, you know, in the mid-20s now reported youth unemployment, they've got, you know,

they don't even have electricity to everybody in their country. that's why they're opening up a coal plant one a week right now is what they're doing because they're trying to electrify their country the reason why i mean the washington post said oh china's doing such a much better job of getting to electric cars in the u.s they didn't include in the story that all the cars are powered by coal because china's trying to reduce their dependence on even russian oil and gas and so we just have to you have to understand the global economy you're trying to fix you have to understand their weak points which is the you know demographics they've got big challenges, food insecurity, energy insecurity.

And when you have that, they can't keep spending this kind of money on military, you know, in an unlimited way. And then they've got a debt crisis. They're going to have their own real estate crisis. I mean, they're at a point of weakness right now. And then we're operating out of ourselves operating out of weakness under the Biden administration. Should the U.S. be willing to defend Taiwan militarily? Or should we do what we've done in Ukraine, which is send them arms, send them aid, but let them do the fighting? Well, I think we always, it's always fantastic, I think, from a standpoint of U.S. policy, if we don't have to send U.S. troops. And it's a, that's a, there's obviously ways we can do that. And we've got agreements, but we do have agreements like we do with NATO where we've got allied agreements. But this idea that somehow, you know, somehow that we should just let Putin have Ukraine. We should, what, let Iran destroy Israel and we should let China take Taiwan. I mean, that's not a, that's not. That's not.

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with some of your opponents in this race that Ukraine shouldn't be a priority. It's a territorial dispute or it just shouldn't be a priority. And look, if Russia wants to take half of Ukraine or 20% of Ukraine, the bigger issue is China. You see them as all inextricably linked. Completely linked. And again, our failed oil sanctions on Russia to just turn Russia into China's discount gas station. You talk to a farmer in Iowa or a lobsterman in New Hampshire, they would love to be getting diesel at 20% off tomorrow, but they're not. But China has been getting diesel at 20% off because when we put our failed sanctions on Russia, they just started selling to China. And when they started selling, some of these transactions for the first time were happening outside of the U.S. dollar. When global oil transactions start happening in one and other currencies, it risks our reserve currency status, which then unravels the whole idea that we can just keep printing money and having deficits. Yeah, I don't think anybody, well, shouldn't say anybody. I think a lot of people don't understand that our, are, the fact that the U.S. dollars, the world's reserve currency, really smooths our recessions and keeps us as the most attractive place for foreign investment in the world.

I need to shift gears, even though the nerd in me could get really caught up in that and talk some politics. I want you to assess for me the state of your campaign, the progress of your campaign. I've talked to some Republicans I know that hate Trump. I've talked to some Republicans. I know that love Trump. They both seem to agree, at least in my anecdotal conversations, they really like you. But, you know, you know numbers.

You built a very successful company, so you can look at a poll the same as I can look at a poll. And your level of support is low. But you're the one campaigning. So give me the assessment that you see of your campaign and how you should. think you go from where you are to winning primaries? Well, happy to do that. And we love the position we're in. The first thing I would just say to end your listeners is ignore national polls. I mean, national polls not just historically have been wrong. But even some of these early state polls, even though you're a neighbor and governor, governor of North Dakota, Iowa is not far from you.

A lot of people think that you're a candidate built to do well in New Hampshire, given your issue set at the very least. And look, New Hampshire, they love small state things and you're a small state governor. And the American people often have a romance, at least for a little while, with small state governors who would be president. But your polling just isn't that great. I'm not criticizing it. I'm saying, tell me what everybody's missing and why you feel you're going to end up where you want to be in the end, which is winning. Well, this is easy, which is, I think it's, if you want to be a numbers guy, take a look at everybody I'm on stage with, and first of all, we announced on June 7th, and then, you know, there's multiple people on stage

that were ahead of in both Iowa and New Hampshire. So then you say, wow, you fought your way in three months from being unknown being in the top five. How do you feel about that? You'd say, I feel great about that because everybody said, oh, you're not even going to make the first debate. Oh, you're not going to make the second debate. You're not going to ever, you know, you're never going to have some kind of breakthrough. But if you go back to name recognition, which is numbers, we're tied with people in some of the early states whose name recognition is two, two and a half times higher than ours is. So just do the math. If you have a thousand people in a poll and 400 of them have actually know who we are and we're tied with somebody else, that means we're reaching

the same level of polling with 400 people that they're getting with 1,000 people if they have 100%. So we know that a dollar that goes into our campaign, you know, whether it's on the ground or whether it's on, you know, local media or whether it's, you know, being on shows like with this with you, David, as our name recognition goes up, as people understand who we are, what we stand for, what we've done. They understand that I'm the only person on that stage. I've created more jobs than everybody else on that stage. I'm the only guy in that stage that's been making payroll since my mid-20s. I'm the only guy on the stage that grew up with working jobs on the farm, the ranch, the grain elevator, and even as a chimney sweep to pay my way through college, where I was

taking a shower at the end of the day. My dad died when I was a freshman in high school. My mom went back to work. I understand what economic insecurity looks like when you're trying to make the mortgage and put gas in the car and food on the table, which is the number one issue. So if you want someone to fix the economy, then maybe you should have someone who's actually lived in the economy, worked in the economy, and made jobs. And, you know, the most, you know,

the craziest thing I hear is that people say, oh, people should be dropping out ahead of when the voters start voting. Well, if someone's going to drop out, maybe the people should drop out are the ones that have never created a job and never made payroll. Because I don't know how we've seen what happened with Joe Biden when you put people that have spent their life on the East Coast, in Washington, D.C., you know, put them in the White House and they literally don't understand

how the economy of the world economy. And yeah, I'm a small state governor, but I've only been doing that for six years. I built my career, you know, in this tech industry, the most competitive industry there is. I mean, no tariffs, no subsidies, just flat out competition. You've got to be better, faster, cheaper the next day than you were the day before. That's how I've known to take cost out. It took 27% of the cost out of the general fund in North Dakota my first four months in office and everything ran on time. Nobody else seems to know how to even slow the growth. I mean, get a business guy in there that actually knows how to reduce the cost but

increase the value of the services. So speaking of that, you know, eight years ago, Republicans did put a business guy in there. I mean, Donald Trump's not just a business guy, but. No, he's also a reality TV star. Right. But that was their thinking. And because you were running against him and because he is the immediate past president and because he's the frontrunner, I want to ask you to assess his presidency.

Well, from a standpoint of being a governor that got elected on the same day, he and I were both outsiders. We were both, you know, told we couldn't win. We were both, you know, way down on the polling. I was down 60 points, six months before the primary, coming in as an outsider and won that primary by 20 points. We won election in 2016 and 2020 by over 40 points, the largest margins in the country. of any gubernatorial races those years. So I've got an affinity with the president sort of riding on that wave of outsiders coming in in 16. But what we focused on was delivering results, cutting red tape and cutting taxes. And North Dakota's got the highest GDP of any Republican-led

state in the nation. We have the highest workforce participation over 70 points. That's a problem in the whole country. We've passed some groundbreaking legislation around workforce and getting our economy going. And we're really, you know, delivering on an agenda, which is making sure that the U.S. can be energy dominant, which is key to stabilizing the globe. I mean, we're a state that produces more energy than most OPEC nations. But you're assessing your administration. I want you to assess his administration because you're running against him. Well, I would say that, you know, the contrast between what Biden has done when what Trump did. I mean, that was obviously you got a Republican in the White House, that makes a huge difference. But I think that, again, the challenge that

we're facing, there was something that went on. We did see, what, $8 trillion of increase in the national debt during that time period that the president was in office. That's not sustainable going forward. And I think the thing, the big differentiator is the every job, every company, every industry, the military, all are being driven by technology. We've never had a candidate that's got a technology background to ever run for the White House. I think right now having the global business experience. I mean, people working for me in 130 countries. You know, we've got, I understand how the world works. I understand how it's changing. And and that's, that's thing. So I think it was the right time, the right time when President Trump

came in. And I think that the America is looking for a new face in 2024. And again, the reason I'm badgering you on this a little bit is I think there are a lot of Republican primary voters, as suggested by poll numbers who think to themselves, well, you know, I didn't necessarily like his tweets and he could get a little self-consumed, but he was president. So he's done the job. He has the experience. The Middle East was in much better shape when he was president. The U.S. was energy independent when he was president. Until the pandemic, the economy was humming when he was president based in part on the $1.3 trillion tax overhaul bill that he helped get through Congress and sign. And so why shouldn't we give him another term being that we had, I mean, again,

outside of the pandemic, we had all these great results. Like maybe Doug, you should be energy secretary. There's his famous story Chris Christie tells about campaigning in New Hampshire in 2016 and his wife, who's going door to door for him, is invited in. I love your husband. He's amazing. Oh, we can count on your vote. Oh, no, no, I'm voting for Trump. But Chris Christie, he should be attorney general. I love Chris Christie.

What do you say to those Republican voters that you need? Because you need some of them that are voting for Trump, voting for Nikki Haley, voting for Tim Scott. Why should they go with you? Well, I think we've covered some of that, but I'll happy to cover it again. And I understand that this race is not over. I mean, this idea that somehow... You just don't buy that. I don't buy it at all.

I mean, it's like, I mean, I got Newt Gingrich on the other day going, everybody should quit and endorse the former president. And it's like, I guess we should just cancel the NFL season because maybe, you know, maybe Newt knows who's going to win the Super Bowl and every playoff game, too. It's like America loves competition. Competition is good for the Republican Party and it's good. And primary voters are the ones that get to decide, you know, not pundits, you know, not TV channels and not even the people that organize the debates. I mean, it's the voters that are going to vote in January that are going to start narrowing the field. And we've got a very small field already right now. But in those early states, you know, the polls in those states show that there's a hard ceiling on the former president's support.

You've got 60% of the people are looking for an alternative. And so when you say, you know, why should people vote for you? If everybody that loves the former president votes for them and everybody that's looking for an alternative votes for someone else, it's going to be a 60-40 race for the new face. You know, that's just the reality of the numbers. Okay. And so there's definitely a path. And as far as energy secretary, I mean, I guess I'll take that as a compliment, but the next interview. I meant it as a compliment.

I could imagine voters, you know, that I've talked to making the same calculation. And so it was definitely not. Right. But everybody, you know, but I've also had people say, hey, you'd make a great ag secretary. You grew up, you're the only guy in the field that's a farmer. Oh, you'd make a great commerce secretary. Look at your experience. And then, wow, how about Department of Interior?

You really understand federal lands better and everyone else. You know, when you're a CEO, if you have the understanding of how to do. do all the cabinet level job, just like as the governor of North Dakota, I know what my cabinet leaders do. And I know that every time I've ever built an organization, I've attracted a ton of high performing talent. The president gets to make 4,000 appointments. I would, anybody that's known me and they've seen the, you know, companies on 100 best places to work, high performing teams, great, you know, great wealth creation for all the shareholders and investors. I mean, that's my track record. I'm an unusual. I'm not a politician.

I'm a business leader. And some of the people that are supporting me the strongest are the ones that have known me the longest. People that have known me from high school, from college, from grad school. I mean, that's unusual because it's like, wow, we've known this guy for three or four decades. And everything he's ever touched has turned out great. And he's done it with integrity. He's done it with honesty. And it's part of what, part of what, you know, the question you're asked is about the past versus the future.

I mean, part of the way we have to move this country forward is we can't have a leader in the White House who's a divider. You have to have someone who can actually unite this country because guess what, because you keep out about a Republican primary. The election in November 24 is going to be decided by independence. There are not enough for, if every Republican voted for a Republican candidate, Republicans still lose. I mean, wake up Republicans. We need some independents to actually get over the mark to actually have someone in the White House. And so you have to have someone that's got the appeal and the understanding that when they're in the office, they're working for everybody. it's not it's not who's got the largest grievances it's not who's you know you know can

call other people the greatest you know the biggest names or something because the whole process even like you think of these debates i mean a fellow who worked with had a 16 year old daughter watch one of the debates she'd never watched a political thing and she goes dad these are the people that want to be president of the united states if we were talking that way to each other we would we wouldn't we'd be kicked out of our class at school you know i mean the role modeling we're doing for young people. What leadership looks like is not the political discourse we're having today. What leadership looks like is that we can actually do things where we can improve every American life. We can bring out the best of America. You know, we can, we can, America can, America can

achieve its vision for the country. This is a country that was built on idealism and aspiration. And we we have an opportunity. What's ahead of us is not just this constant mess of world conflict and infighting and scarcity. You know, there's a world of abundance waiting for us. if we can have someone that understands how to harness, you know, the advances that are coming and technology and biotech and health care and science. I mean, when I was a kid, we're going to run out of food and energy. Guess what? We didn't. Innovation solved that.

We need innovation, not regulation. And we need an aspirational leader that understands how the world works that can move things forward and have the clear mind and 100% focus to be able to do that. Okay. As I close out the interview, I wanted to ask you some questions that I think would come up in a general election. if you're the nominee, right? Because I think a lot of independent voters want a sort of level setting in American politics, given the upheaval and the divisiveness over the past, you know, a few years. And so I'm sure you've answered this question again, but just for the purposes of the dispatch podcast,

did Trump win the 2020 presidential election or did he lose it? He lost. Okay. And because I've never had a chance to ask you this before, but because I also think it would come up in a general election context, just talk to me about what you thought on January 6th as the Capitol was being overrun by people trying to disrupt the transfer of power and how you looked at that event. Well, I looked at it with some level of understanding and some level of dismay because, you know, again, I live in, I live in Trump country. We know there are people I understand and know people well that have a deep distrust in some of the fundamental institutions of our country, institutions of democracy. And that fundamental distrust has not gone down since January 6th has gone up because that. they believe we've got a two-tier system of justice and that they believe that some

these institutions are being weaponized for political purposes. Do you agree with them? I think that it's a, there's nothing that, there's nothing that you could do or say that would convince them otherwise because the pattern, you know, at the surface level is such that it just seems that way. And I think what we need is a clean break. I mean, because we've got a, I mean, one of, one of the things that Americans, a majority Americans, large majority Americans agree on is they'd like to see some matchup different than

the 2020 matchup in the 2024. And I think everybody can say that, that the majority would like that. And why at the root level? The root level is because people want to move past that they want to have, they want to be able to trust in that our country is moving in the right directions. And part of, and I know that because when I've been involved in turnarounds in business, you don't turn around business with the same leadership or bringing back the old leadership, whatever. You have to bring in fresh leadership who can reestablish that bond of trust. And that's something I've entrust with customers, trust with partners, trust with team members. That's the thing that I've done my whole life. It's the most important

asset that any of us have is building that trust. And so that's, that's, you know, something as present in this country. And when I say in North Dakota, I mean, the reason why we win, when we win 7030 in an election in North Dakota, and we're winning, it's not because we're winning because we've got some people on each of the edges are mad us about something but the majority which is we're a country where the majority is the ones that decide is that they know that we're working for everybody that we said hey you know when we're elected doesn't matter if you voted for us or not you know when there's a blizzard we're still going to plow your road i mean we're plowing the roads for republicans independence and democrats and

by the way when we're plowing a road north Dakota north code is the size of all six new england states together and we get it done with a lot less, a lot less cost than those six states would. I mean, because we know how to work. We know how to work. We know how to use common sense. We know how to get it done. But that's something that people can count on for me because our future is very bright in this country, but it's going to, it takes leadership matters. And leadership is not who's the biggest victim. You know, the leader, you know, is going to be someone who can help us understand how bright our future can be and how we can organize to get ourselves there. North Dakota Governor Doug Bergham, thanks so much for joining us on the Dispatch Podcast.

Thank you, David. Great to be with you. I'm going to be able to be.