JUST IN: Doug Burgum Says 'We're Living In' A Dictatorship In The U.S.

3 months ago

At an event in Walker, Michigan, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) spoke to reporters about his support of former President Trump and criticisms of President Biden.

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Transcript

00:00Hi, good morning everybody. Thanks for being here. I want to thank Tim and Teresa, obviously.

00:06Fantastic host this morning. What an amazing business. And this is the best in America right here.

00:12You have an entrepreneur who takes the risk with his wife, starts his business, and now creating jobs and creating community.

00:19What's going on here? I mean, how do you have a better morning?

00:22We've already met a veteran here today, one of your customers.

00:25And then we meet another incredible story about a young person that's in recovery, building a business.

00:30So this is where it's happening, and it's in places like Sobeys Meats where this election is going to be determined.

00:36I'll talk about that in a second, but I do want to thank the ambassador, now chairman of the GOP in Michigan also, for being here today and helping host us.

00:44And of course, I want to thank First Lady Catherine for everything she's doing across the country as she works to eliminate the shame and stigma of disease and addiction.

00:54But again, when I say election's going to turn in a place like this, it absolutely is, because this is where the everyday working American who's got a job and they've got a paycheck,

01:07and they come and then they get hit in the face with inflation.

01:10And at the end of the month, whether it's the food on the table, the gas in the car, the price of electricity in their home,

01:16some of them I'm sure have said, hey, I'd love to buy a house, but with interest rates, the American dream is out of reach.

01:23And every election in the end turns on people saying, am I better off than I was four years ago?

01:30And I think everybody in Michigan is going to be able to say, this is not a theoretical thing.

01:34They actually had an opportunity to live under when President Trump was in office for four years, and they were better off.

01:41The world was at peace. Our economy was stronger.

01:44We had an administration that was supporting jobs in Michigan as opposed to trying to eliminate all these auto jobs.

01:52They pursue a strategy around EVs, which, again, just enslaves us to China.

01:58We spent 40 years trying to get out from underneath OPEC.

02:01We finally got to Team USA and energy independence.

02:04And now we've got the Biden administration wants to make sure that we're buying all of our –

02:10a battery is basically the engine in an EV car.

02:13We're going to buy all of our engines from China, the world's largest polluter,

02:18in a country that controls 85 percent of the rare earth minerals.

02:22I don't think that makes sense for our country.

02:24It doesn't make sense for people that work in Michigan.

02:27So without a missing stop, I'll take a few questions.

02:30But again, I want to thank Tim and Teresa.

02:32What an amazing place they have here.

02:34And as I said earlier, the ground rule is here.

02:36Everybody's here, but you've got to buy some beef sticks before you leave.

02:39Make sure you do.

02:40And I think what the best seller, Tim, is?

02:42A meat with cheese, hunter, and teriyaki.

02:45Okay, meat with cheese, hunter, and teriyaki.

02:47There you got your selections right there from the head chef.

02:50We'll take a few questions.

02:52Governor, have you heard any updates in the vetting process for vice president?

02:56This will be my only second yes or no answer of the – probably the last year.

03:04But no, no, I haven't heard any updates.

03:06And do you think in general for a vice presidential candidate,

03:09is it more important to expand Trump's base or mirror his policies?

03:14Well, an interesting question, but the answer to that question is solely up to President Trump.

03:20We're so lucky in the Republican Party that we've got so many strong bench of people that are coming up,

03:27so many people that are out there making a difference in campaigning for President Trump.

03:31And when he makes that decision, it's solely up to him.

03:34And he's the guy that controls the criteria.

03:36He'll throw the choice.

03:37But what Catherine and I, when we decided to even get in this,

03:41we never said to ourselves, oh, let's go campaign for vice president.

03:45What we said was, hey, we could have run for a third term as governor in North Dakota.

03:49We decided not to because, like the people of Michigan,

03:53Catherine and I had spent four years as a governor and first lady with President Trump

03:57and then now three and a half under President Biden.

03:59And I can tell you, it's night and day between those two things.

04:02One, with President Trump, it was like a gentle breeze at our back,

04:05and North Dakota was supported, states were respected.

04:08And what we were doing across agriculture and energy and creating electricity,

04:12we were supported.

04:14Now under President Biden, I have the same job description.

04:17I'm governor of this great state, but my job has completely changed.

04:20We've run out of lawyers in North Dakota.

04:22We're fighting back on over 30 rules and mandates,

04:25and any one of those might be 800 to 1,400 pages long.

04:29None of them have come from Congress.

04:31They're all just being sent down on top of us from these three-letter agencies,

04:35and they're raising the cost of everything.

04:37I can tell you exactly why food costs more and energy costs more,

04:41because what do we do in North Dakota?

04:43We create food and we create energy.

04:45And I can tell you the source of those increases is coming from all the regulation

04:49that is being piled on top of us.

04:51So if you want to find out what it's like to live in a dictatorship,

04:54we're living in one now because a democracy, Congress sets the rules.

04:58In a dictatorship, one party just starts shoving rules down on things

05:02that raise the cost of everything.

05:04The two of us decided, hey, we should spend our time this year

05:07making sure that President Trump gets back

05:09and the Trump administration gets back in the White House.

05:11That's what we're doing, and that's why we're here today.

05:15On day two of your presidential run, you said that abortion should be left out of the case.

05:20Former President Trump has now adopted that position.

05:24Have you advised him or any other positions or helped him in this debate, Brad?

05:28How often do you speak with him?

05:31Well, I would just say that it's been a real honor for Katherine and I

05:36to spend as much time with the president as we have since we first endorsed him.

05:41We were the first presidential candidate who dropped out to endorse him.

05:45We were there on the stage in Iowa on that historic night.

05:47We were there with him in Nevada, and we've had the invitation.

05:51We just said, hey, we're on call.

05:54Call us if you need us, and we'll go.

05:57So we've had a chance to spend quite a bit of time with him,

05:59and across that we've had a lot of discussions.

06:01But the thing that I think that we really appreciate,

06:03we wish every American could see President Trump the way we got to know him.

06:07We got to know him in a much closer way.

06:09The guy is incredibly hardworking.

06:11He's a business person, just like Tim is, just like I was for all those years.

06:17And he thinks about solutions just in pure common sense,

06:20and he thinks about it in terms of what's best for America.

06:23So he is super curious.

06:26You go to a fundraiser with him or a roundtable,

06:29and he'll ask questions of everybody that's there.

06:32He's always sampling. He's always learning.

06:34So I think he's getting great input.

06:37He's getting input from the American people on these policies.

06:43We've been in discussion with the Trump campaign team,

06:46but there's never been a better politician, a better debater, a better communicator.

06:53I mean, you look at the size of the rallies that people show up to hear President Trump.

06:57It's historic.

06:59I mean, people just ought to say, we've never had someone like this.

07:03We may never have one like this again.

07:05It's really remarkable the way he can connect with people,

07:07and I'm sure he's going to do that during the debate.

07:09Mr. Secretary, I remember in the primary debates you were very focused on policy.

07:14That's something that you wanted to bring to the stage.

07:16Is there something that you think that President Trump should focus on in those debates before the American people?

07:25Well, I think some of you had an opportunity to travel with us quite a bit during that primary,

07:31and it's good to see all of you again.

07:32I'd say that you would recall that we talked at every stop about three things.

07:36We talked about the economy.

07:38We talked about how energy underpinned our economy and inflation,

07:42but also how energy affects our national security and our foreign policy.

07:48And part of national security, of course, is the border.

07:51So we got a couple things on the border.

07:55President Trump, no one's been stronger on the border,

07:57but we've got a mass invasion occurring, and now we've got mass casualties.

08:01We have to call it that because we've lost over five Vietnams of people to fentanyl poisonings and overdose deaths.

08:08And it's just baffling to me when we've got the crime that's happening across our nation,

08:14and including here in Michigan, many of it driven by people who have entered our country illegally,

08:20that this is no longer a Republican issue.

08:24That kind of crime and that kind of population coming into our country illegally

08:29affects every independent Democrat, Republican.

08:31It's going to be a huge factor.

08:33And in a state like Michigan where there's been over 3,000 of these overdose deaths a year,

08:40I mean, I think when we travel, Catherine and I, we meet people regularly that have lost a family member

08:48or they know someone who's lost a family member.

08:50And, again, that's not Republican versus Democrat.

08:54That's affecting everybody.

08:55Fentanyl doesn't know what party you're in.

08:58We're losing all kinds of people.

09:00So I think President Trump is right on the issues on the border,

09:04and he's right on the energy policy because Joe Biden's energy policy is funding the two proxy wars we're in.

09:11We're fighting a proxy war against Russia.

09:12We're fighting a proxy war against Iran.

09:14And both of those countries are profiting from the Biden administration,

09:20which is trying to shut down U.S. energy and shove that production overseas.

09:24So that doesn't make any sense to the average American either.

09:27I would pay more for my gasoline at home so that the foreign dictators can fund wars against us,

09:35and then we fight over how much money we're going to spend in Congress to support our side.

09:39I mean, we're paying for both sides of the war effectively with these just absurd energy policies.

09:45President Trump understands all that, which is fantastic,

09:49and it's one of the reasons why we're so strongly behind it.

09:52Last question.

09:55What would you say are the top economic concerns of this area that you run?

09:59Well, I think they're largely the same here as they are anywhere else in the country,

10:04which is prices went up.

10:08And in Michigan, if you add up what people are paying in Michigan versus when Joe Biden took office,

10:14the average family, if you take electricity, their rent, their food and their gas, those four things,

10:20the average family is paying almost $20,000 more for those things than they were before in the time period that he's been in office.

10:27And so that is absolutely the number one thing.

10:30But then the second thing, again, is that every, I mean, of course, like North Dakota,

10:34Michigan is a border state with Canada, but with the open border on the southern border, as I mentioned,

10:39it's not about people saying, it's not about immigration.

10:43An open border is about national security and now it's about public safety.

10:47And it's about the cost of that.

10:50The idea that in a state like Michigan where they're paying people to house illegal immigrants,

10:56I mean, this is with taxpayer dollars.

10:58I mean, some of these things just don't make common sense to the average voter.

11:02And I'd say jobs is the last thing because no state gets hit harder with this EV idea

11:08that somehow we're going to take every car and turn it into an EV.

11:11No state gets harder in terms of lost jobs.

11:14And I think you're going to see across the country, there might be union leaders that are still supporting Joe Biden,

11:19but union workers are going to be supporting Donald Trump.

11:24Thank you. Thank you all for being here.

JUST IN: Doug Burgum Says 'We're Living In' A Dictatorship In The U.S.

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