The NPR Politics Podcast - Can Gov. Doug Burgum Introduce Himself In Time To Win The GOP Primary?

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

The governor of North Dakota is running to be the Republican nominee for president after a long career in business and two elections to the governor's mansion.In an interview with The NPR Politics Podcast, Burgum, who has languished in the polls, says his path to the nomination relies on increasing his name recognition.This episode: politics correspondent Susan Davis and White House correspondent Asma Khalid.The podcast is was produced by Casey Morell and Elena Moore. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And today on the show, we're continuing our series of interviews with the Republican candidates for president. Joining us now is North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Governor,

thank you so much for speaking with us. Well, good morning, Sue. Good morning, Asma. It's so great to be with both of you. And I think the question everyone wants to know first off the bat is, how's your Achilles tendon doing? Well, that's so kind of you to ask. And, of course, the number of questions I've received has gone up exponentially since Aaron Rodgers went down on the fourth snap of the season. And then it turns out there's quite a, I want to say, a collegial group of people in America who've all blown their Achilles because the number of people who've come up to me on the campaign trail. And for our listeners, let's do a little bit of introduction about your background. Before you ran for office, you were a successful multi-hyphenate

software entrepreneur, philanthropist, venture capitalist. In 2016, you ran and won the race for governor with no prior political experience, and you were easily reelected in 2020. Now you want to be president of the United States. So what was your decision point to get in this race? And what about you makes you think you'll be the best candidate for the job? Well, I think the first point is really the decision was more about running for governor because leaving the private sector and jumping into the public sector is a big decision for any family, particularly in these days. But we made a decision to jump in the arena really out of a heart of service. We felt that the challenges that we were facing, North Dakota in 2016, we had a significant budget crisis. We had the code access pipeline was protests was raging and the economy was changing.

I come at it with an approach that when you're in the executive branch, it's very different. I mean, I'll never be a senator. I'll never be a congressman. I'm not even that interested in politics, but I am interested in service, and I'm interested in solutions, and I'm interested in solving the hard problems that are facing our country. We've proven in the state of North Dakota that we can balance budget, cut taxes, cut red tape, get our economy sprinting instead of crawling. And we've done it for North Dakota. And when I'm your president, I know I can do it for America. At this point, a number of economic metrics have been improving. Unemployment is lower. Inflation is cooling. Some of the recession fears have decreased. How would you alter or improve the economy? What else do you feel needs to be done at this point?

Well, I'm very skeptical of the reports that you mentioned for a couple of reasons, because we still have these record high interest rates. And when we're out talking to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, they're not reciting the stuff that the mainstream media is. They're like going, I can't afford to buy a house. I can't afford to put food on my table and gas in my tank. The average American is spending $700 more a month than they were two years ago. It's 8,400 bucks a year just for their basic needs. And so if you tell them that inflation is slowing down, that means prices are still rising.

It doesn't mean that they're going down. It means they're still rising, just not as fast. And they all got a pay cut the last two and a half years. And telling them that they're going to get a little less pay cut isn't making them happy. So the economic issues are number one on people's minds. And anybody that's out there talking to real people, whether it's a farmer in Iowa or a lobster in New Hampshire, and they all know that they're paying too much for their energy, whether it's their electricity, whether it's their heating oil in New Hampshire, whether it's the gas or diesel they're putting in their vehicles.

And all of that is direct lying back to the Biden energy policies, which are destabilizing the world, empowering dictators and raising the cost on every American. And by the way, not making the environment better, because if you cared about the environment, you'd want to have all the energy produced in the United States, not outsource it to places like China, the largest polluter in the world. Governor, just to stay on the economy for a minute, I'd love to get your take on the United autoworker strike. Donald Trump is going to skip the next debate. He's going to meet with union workers out in Detroit. There's an increasing number of Republicans in your party who say that the party should align itself closer to the labor movement. One example, Ohio Republican J.D. Vance said he supports the UAW workers' demands for higher wages. You were just talking about how regular people are struggling. You've been an executive. How do you feel about these workers' demands? Well, I feel that the markets actually

work in the sense that people can choose who they want to work for today. I mean, if you're an auto worker and you don't like your wage and you've got skill set, you can probably pick your city in America and decide, I'm going to go work there and I'm going to live there. I'm going to do whatever I want to do. I mean, the amount of availability for people who want to work is just through the roof. So right now, labor in this battle between, you know, this creating pressure on wage rates going up, they've got a huge advantage. So I think they're in a great negotiating position just because we've got a lot of people that aren't working in America right now. But I think markets work. I mean, we've got a lot of people that aren't working in America right now.

So I, but I think markets work. I mean, we've got auto companies in this country that are non-unionized and they're not on strike and their workers are happy. So it's not like we can just take three of our auto companies, the oldest ones, maybe the ones that are most entrenched in history, but we can, you can look all over America at new auto plants where there are non-union workers. They're happy. They've got great work. They got great benefits. They love their community. So it can work both ways in our country. And it's not a black and white thing, but companies have to, right now, every company, whether you're a tech company, whether you're a restaurant, whether you're a hospital, a nursing home, you've got to make sure that you're doing great things for your team members because your team members can pack up and move and work someplace else. Governor, I want to shift gears and ask you about your party's frontrunner in the Republican nomination for president, and that is former President Donald Trump.

You raised your hand in the first debate when asked if you would support him if he were the nominee and convicted of any crimes. So what do you say to people like your fellow governor, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who are out there saying Donald Trump can't win a general election and he's going to cost Republican candidates up and down the ballot? Do you share those concerns? Do you not share those concerns? And could you explain why? Well, first of all, let me address the question at the debate. Everybody on that stage, because of these clubhouse rules with the New Hampshire and the early states, South Carolina, Nevada. They're the ones that the voters who are actually paying attention and meeting candidates should be the ones that are thinning, thinning the field. Not the you know, not a national cable channel and some clubhouse rules about national polling.

So when they get on the debate because the RNC is controlling to get on the debate stage, everybody on stage, all eight people signed a pledge that said, I will support the Republican nominee and I won't run as an independent. So we all know that, the math. So we started running our race from the beginning, running a race that would allow us to win in November of 2024. That's what we're doing. And if I thought somebody else had a better chance of it, I wouldn't be running. I think we've got the best chance of pulling clubhouse rules. So can you clarify if you do actually support the idea of, you know, standing by Donald Trump if he is the nominee and convicted of any crimes? Well, I will be voting for a Republican nominee over a Democrat in November of 24. And I'll just leave it there. But I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that I'm that nominee. So that's the, you know, I'm not endorsing other

people right now. I'm talking about our campaign and what we can do for America. And that's what our focus is going to be. House Republicans are now pursuing an impeachment inquiry of President Biden. From where you sit, do you think Biden has committed impeachable offenses? I'll leave that to the impeachment crew and the rules of Congress to do that. But I certainly think inquiry is on the surface is valid and necessary because it's just we should all be concerned that if you have a family or an individual that's in public service and that suddenly they and their family members' balance sheets start going up, and you've got the possibility of reported millions and millions of dollars of payments going to multiple family members, on the surface, it looks like influence peddling. Now, everybody's innocent until they're proven guilty, but this is why we have an issue in our country where people don't trust government. They don't trust politicians. It's just abhorrent to me that

people would think that that's okay, or that we shouldn't check into it. Absolutely, we should, because if we don't get to the bottom of it, we don't get to the bottom of it, how are we going to restore trust? Do you think that there needs to be tougher laws about influence peddling? I think there certainly can be an open debate about that. We have leaders in Congress, you know, they're doing basically insider trading. Oh, they're not. Oh, they're spouses. I mean, so why wouldn't we hold Congress and the White House to the same level of criteria that we have for the last 20 years to leaders in the private sector? Do you think that the Supreme Court needs to be held to a higher standard considering multiple reports of members of the court doing things that look like influence peddling. Yeah, it's the same thing. I mean, both sides of our nation, they're very divided, can point to examples of people in the opposite party and say, look, we can't trust Congress. We can't trust the White House. We can't trust the Supreme Court. Oh, great. There we just ticked

off all three branches. This is how democracies end up failing. And you know who's cheering? China's cheering. Russia's cheering. They've all said it won't work. The American experience at some point will fail because it will collapse from inside. And this is why this election matters. And this is why our campaign matters. This is why we're not going to quit. We're going to keep driving. And one person at a time to get a message is we've got to move forward with leadership that this country can trust. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk to Governor Burgum about the issues. And we're back. And let's talk about some of the issues that are important to both Republican primary voters and the country more broadly. We've been asking these same questions to every candidate we interview. And Governor, we start here. Do you believe that Joe Biden was the lawfully elected president in 2020? Yes. And if you are the nominee, do you plan on releasing your tax returns or divesting from your private stock holdings? I will make sure that I don't have any conflicts of interest and there's

transparency around my investments so that everybody can trust that I'm not doing anything at all that would be financially self-enhancing while I'm president. Governor, you signed a near total ban on abortions in your state. If Congress sends any legislation to you that would enact federal restrictions on abortion, would you sign those restrictions into law? No. Care to expound? No, happy to. On the first day we announced, I got asked this question in my very first interview,

and the answer is no. I mean, this goes back to the 10th Amendment. Republicans fought for 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Dobbs decision did that. It returned the power to the states. And then the very next day, we had Republicans saying, oh, no, we've got the federal government's got to get involved. I know this is a super important issue for people on both sides. But the idea that somehow we would say that in this one exception, we can violate the Constitution and the federal government can step in and take a power that belongs to the states because the original 13 states created the federal government, not the other way around. Those states delegated powers to the federal government. The rest remains to the people or to the states, those two things. And as president,

I'm not going to be spending any time on it because we've talked earlier, energy, economy, national security. There's a full plate of things that is actually the job of the president and the federal government. And the federal government's got to do its job. of things that is actually the job of the president and the federal government. And the federal government's got to do its job. The stuff that's not its job has got to return that power to the states or the people. Governor, you do not support more restrictive gun laws, but are there any policies you believe in that might be effective in reducing gun violence, not just in light of mass shootings that the country experiences, but also the reality that we are now a country in which the number one cause of death for children is guns?

Well, I think every American deserves to live in a safe city and kids go to a safe school, but I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. And the issues that we have relate a lot of times to mental health and addiction and other issues. And this is a crisis that we're having across our whole country. And if we're going to be the shining city on the hill, it has to include safety, not whether it's from guns or drug overdoses, whatever. We can build a society that helps, you know, demonstrates awe and wonder and beauty, and also makes it safe for people and allows people to have an environment where they can reach their fullest potential. The upside for this country is huge. What we're witnessing right now is the downside of the lack of leadership. Governor, on immigration, do you feel

that the United States should expand legal pathways to citizenship? Do you think that there are any other alternative ideas about what to do with the situation at the border? I mean, what are your a discussion about immigration reform, but it has to be on the top of the list. I've been down to the border multiple times. We have to fix it, but we are still fortunate. We have an opportunity when the best and the brightest in the world want to get to our country. We have an opportunity. And right now, even Canada, Canada has picked off a million people that came to the U.S. to study. We educated them at our best universities. They got advanced degrees. Their student visas run out. We're going to try to send them home. And Canada puts up a welcome sign. And a million people move north across the border that are high skilled to go help juice their economy. So we've got it wrong on every aspect on immigration.

And it has to be fixed. And it has to be a top priority. On that note, Governor, I mean, do you believe that the U.S. should expand legal pathways to citizenship? We need to have an immigration policy that makes sense for America. I don't understand who's defending the current open border policy. No one can explain to me why that makes sense at any level. And we have to figure out a way. But we're going to have to have pathways for us to solve the problems. And we have to have pathways for the best and the brightest in the world who want to come to our country.

We're competing against China and Russia and Iran. They build walls to keep people in. We're a country that has an opportunity to have talent. And the way you win in the private sector, I know this, is you get the talent and the capital on your team. The way we built great government in North Dakota was we got all kinds of talented people to leave the private sector to come and do jobs in public sector just for the purpose and the meaning of it. And the way we're going to win as a country, the way we're going to win a Cold War is harnessing the talent of the people of this country and moving them forward. And if we can't have a discussion about every aspect of

how to make our country safer, our borders secure, and have a smart immigration policy, we're not going to reach our potential. Governor, if you were elected president, would you continue the U.S. commitment to Ukraine and its fight against Russia? I would. Absolutely would. Every dollar needs to be accounted for in that commitment. But this is one of the confusing things to me about our party right now, where somehow people think that, you know, giving Russia a win in Eastern Europe right now, or just, you know, drawing a line on the map with a sharpie and saying, okay, just keep what you took, that somehow that makes any sense in a world where we just saw Russia meeting with North Korea. Russia and senior leaders have met with China 40 times in the last 10 years. We don't just have, you know,

three separate enemies that are after us right now. So we have to understand who we're up against. And we have to understand that they're all colluding together, North Korea, China, and Russia. And you can't separate these things. And if we draw a line in Ukraine with a Sharpie and say, it's yours, Russia, then guess what? Like the next day, China is going to march into Taiwan. And then Americans will really feel and understand what it's like when our nation is dependent on semiconductors that come from Taiwan and lots of other things that somehow we would just give up that.

It starts with having a foreign policy that actually works in terms of deterrence. Peace through strength works if you have deterrence in place ahead of time. And we didn't have them ahead of time in Eastern Europe. We need to have them ahead of time now with Taiwan. One final question for you. As governor, you have signed a number of bills into law concerning transgender youth in your state. I'm curious for your take on this, because we had former Governor Chris Christie on the podcast, and he said he opposed legislation

and laws along these lines, because he said they weren't conservative, in that he did not support anything that would put the state involved between parents and their children. So let me ask you about, from that perspective of these transgender bills, what's conservative about them if it is dictating how parents can or cannot treat their children? Well, first of all, I would just say this falls to be under the 10th Amendment, and this is something that belongs with the states and needs to be taken care of at the state level where legislators or schools or sports organizations can get involved in, you know, listening and understanding the actual situation with parents and families, etc. But what we did in North Dakota was, you know, as the principal said, hey, we're going to protect women's sports. And so we protected women's sports. And so we've protected women's sports.

There's other things that we've done to say, Hey, we're going to support adults that may want to have transformative, you know, call them sex change operations, but we don't support that for youth in the same vein that, that we have laws that say, you know, you can't drink if you're under 21 and you can't smoke. There's other things you can't do that we restrict for young people. And this is one of the things that our legislature felt strongly about that ought to be restricted.

But these are clearly things that are not anything that the president of the United States should be spending time on. When we just dialed through in this conversation, all the challenges facing our nation. These are things that need to be debated and litigated at the local and state level. Doug Burgum is the governor of North Dakota. Governor, thank you so much for speaking with us. Thank you, Sue. Thank you, Osby. Great being on this program with you. And we have talked to three other Republican candidates so far, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former Texas Congressman Will Hurd, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. You can find links to all of those interviews at NPR.org. We plan to have more of them as the campaign season continues. I'm Susan Davis, I cover politics. And I'm Asma Khalid, I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to

the NPR Politics Podcast.