Governor Doug Burgum (R-ND) 2024 GOP presidential candidate, spoke to Brian Kilmeade about the impact inflation is having on the economy and how that will affect the 2024 election. Burgum also discussed how the democrats are panicking over blue collar workers and minorities moving toward the Republican Party
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Rough transcript
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:00] And Governor Burgum, when you ran for president, you thought you’d be diving into the issues one after the other. And how frustrating has it been to hear the first and I heard it two weeks ago and I brought it up on the show the first 5 minutes of every interview, all five questions are all about Trump an indictment. Is that frustrating for you?
Doug Burgum [00:00:17] Well, it’s frustrating for me because I care about the country and I care about the American people. And we’re in a Cold War with China. We’re in a proxy war with Russia. We’ve got energy policies under the Biden administration that are destabilizing the world and raising the price of everything for every not just gas and oil and diesel and electricity, but raising the price of everything. And inflation is choking everyone and in this country. And then, of course, the until the Hunter Biden thing came along, this was clear that as long as we weren’t talking about Biden’s record, that was helping him get reelected. And so part of our campaign from day one is we’ve got to have people that are focused on Biden’s record, the challenges we’re facing as a country and the solutions that we have and the leadership that’s going to take to resolve those.
Brian Kilmeade [00:01:03] I thought it was almost hysterical that Governor Waltz of Minnesota followed you on Meet the Press, and he said all Governor Bergen would talk about is Trump. We have all these policies. And then finally, Chuck Todd actually had to say, you know, in fairness, I did ask him about that. I asked about Trump. So I’m willing to blame. I mean, they really want to get away with this, as if you would prefer to talk about someone’s indictments. You have a law background that doesn’t pay for anyone. And Chris Christie is Chris Christie is trying to make his name. How how do you cut through?
Doug Burgum [00:01:36] Well, I think the what we do is we just focus on the things that matter to most Americans. We know that the thing that’s right now on everybody’s mind is the economy. And when you’ve got interest rates, a 22 year high inflation, 700 bucks a month more or the average family is paying right now versus when Biden was elected. I mean, you ask the question, are you better off now than when Biden gotten in office? The answers are screaming resounding no. And the thing about inflation, Brian, too, that we forget about because they just talk about, oh, the price, your eggs or whatever inflation, these hardworking families, they’ve been putting away savings in price. If prices are 30% higher, that means their savings is 30% lower. That means what you worked your whole life and thought you going to retire on now has got a third less purchasing power. And that’s the part to me where it just breaks my heart because it’s so corrosive in terms of eating into not just today to put food on the table today, but it eats into tomorrow if people have got savings. And then the American dream is all about homeownership. Who can who can buy a home when home prices are that much higher and then interest rates are this high.
Brian Kilmeade [00:02:38] So what’s interesting is the Fed has one move. If I want to calm down the economy, get people to stop spending and make the dollar grow in value, I’m going to raise interest rates. So if the economy gets stronger, if the economy gets stronger in a great volume, there’s more of a chance of interest rates growing up. So it’s almost as if you have to show that it’s working by being, by not shopping, by not going on vacation, by not driving your car to keep the Fed in check. I mean, their hope is to get us to stop consuming, correct?
Doug Burgum [00:03:12] Well, stop consuming and stop building and like stop building, you know, new homes, which is a big driver of of our economy. But here’s the thing that’s also.
Brian Kilmeade [00:03:21] True, that you raise rates, make it harder to build.
Doug Burgum [00:03:23] Raise rates, and you sort of try to cool off the economy. But that might work if you didn’t have the Biden, which was called the Biden Inflation Reduction Act by the Biden, you know, Reduction Act as the Inflation Creation Act, because it drives out all this government spending and the.
Brian Kilmeade [00:03:38] Rescue package that we didn’t need, that we had just spent in December of that month.
Doug Burgum [00:03:41] Correct. And so when we have all this federal spending that’s being driven out into the economy, that’s not affected by interest rates. Take a state like North Dakota, we get a chunk of money through the Infrastructure Act to build roads. Our bids come back. They’re 30% higher. If I was in the private sector, I’d be like, This doesn’t pencil out. We don’t build the road. But we only got six months a year to build roads like all the northern states. So we build 70 miles of road instead of a hundred miles of road. And guess what? We’re consuming steel, concrete, labor. So you could actually have the Fed choke the private sector to the point where the economy stops and then we’ll still have inflation. Brian, because of all the federal stimulus that was shoved into the economy.
Brian Kilmeade [00:04:22] You know, what’s so interesting is that the working class seems to be in the blue collar middle class, seem to be going to Republicans to the point where Democrats are admitting it, that there’s change over the last eight years when they tried to make Mitt Romney this elitist that wanted to carve up big companies, carve them up and send people to the poorhouse. We all knew that was dumb and comic book, but it seemed to sell. That has changed. Do you find that when you look at your polling before you even jumped into as governor in North Dakota, did you find that the blue collar was going Republican?
Doug Burgum [00:04:51] Well, I’ve seen it in our own state and I’ve seen it across the across the country when we’ve been campaigning, which is the folks that are that are concerned about. The issues that we’re talking about. It’s the farmers. It’s the ranchers. It’s the guys working in the oil fields, the energy workers. It is the law enforcement. It’s military. I mean, this is the people that make America work are the ones that are the ones that have supported us. It’s a reason why we’ve won by over 40 points in North Dakota, both in 16 and in 20, is because we listen to and take care of the people that are making this country work.
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:23] I want you to hear what Senator Bernie Sanders and also know politics. He’s only saying for a reason there’s a bit of panic on the left. And by the way, he’s way left cut in.
Speaker 3 [00:05:33] It is absolutely absurd that given the empire of work, ideology and policies of the Republican Party, that that party now has more working class support than Democrats. Democrats are losing more and more support within the Latino community and even among African-American men.
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:57] So the mic wasn’t great. But you know his message. He’s at New Hampshire, where he’d probably win again in New Hampshire. Joe Biden just gave up on the state. What’s your reaction to his conclusion? Why do you think he’s doing this?
Doug Burgum [00:06:09] Well, it doesn’t make any sense to me. I mean, it’s like they’re what they’re surprised that people are moving towards a Republican Party when we’re, you know, pro small business, pro-family, pro wealth creation, pro making sure that, you know, if you work for a day, you get an honest day’s pay. I don’t know why they’d be surprised at all that when, you know, their party is focused on, again, the ideology around around climate. Because in this country, if you say if you say you disagree on climate, you get canceled. We have to be able to talk about climate policy because you can’t say that the climate policy that actually empowers China, which is if you want to go to all EVs in all 80 batteries and subsidize EV cars for wealthy people and then buy the batteries from China, it’s like it’s like China wrote Biden’s energy policy. It makes no sense. And so that’s what their party is all about. And if they actually cared about the environment, you’d want to have all that energy produced here in America.
Brian Kilmeade [00:07:04] I just want to share this with you for a second and just say, if you do get the nomination, Governor Burgum, you’re going against Joe Biden, I think, but listen to it. Ro Kahana. A well-meaning left wing Democrat from California, says that Joe Biden should do. But as his approval rating is just at 39% approval and the economy is at 32%. Here’s the problem is he could cut 11 congressmen.
Speaker 4 [00:07:28] Congressman. You said back in April that you felt that the White House was being too overprotective of the president, that it basically wasn’t letting him get out there enough and be his authentic self. Do you feel that top aides in the White House got that message?
Speaker 5 [00:07:44] I think they do. The president has a great story to tell. He’s bringing back manufacturing in Ohio, $20 billion in Ohio of new industry. He is focused on the working class. I was actually just in South Carolina yesterday with Bishop Green and Amy Church. And the faith community has a lot of support for him. He’s a better politician than anyone who works for him. Let him be out there.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:06] What do you think? Do you really think that anyone has seen Joe Biden not know how to leave a stage should go out there?
Doug Burgum [00:08:14] Well, for the Republican side, I hope he gets out.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:16] He’ll be the best thing ever for Republicans.
Doug Burgum [00:08:18] Get him out there and you know, and then get him on a debate stage and actually have a conversation about it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:24] But do you think he will?
Doug Burgum [00:08:25] Well, you know, again, I don’t would know why he would. I mean, they one last time from the basement. I’m sure that’s their strategy.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:31] To debate twice.
Doug Burgum [00:08:32] Yeah. Well, that was a that’s a whole different story to talk about. But I would say again, on the if on on the merits of the policy and what Biden is doing. I mean, I think one thing, Brian, that just hasn’t been talked about is take a look at this. Here we are, you know, inching towards potentially World War three because of the Cold War with China and the proxy war with Russia and the Biden energy policies, which are literally destabilizing the world. What they’re doing with Iran, you know, they’re they’re basically hugging Iran. And and then this thing they just recently they’re going to release $6 billion of assets in South Korea to release five Americans. When I’m president, we will do everything we can to fight to save every American life. Release that. But have you right now as a former president, start as an entrepreneur but built a global business and had people working in over 100 countries? Every American business leader who’s traveling right now is in more danger today because Biden is saying America will release, you know, 1.2 billion in assets for every American who’s who’s kidnaped. I mean, this is like he greenlighted China to take over Afghanistan. The day we pulled out, he greenlighted Russia to go into the Ukraine. And now he’s greenlighting any terrorist group in the world. And it starts with Iran who’s, you know, supports all of these terrorist groups to start kidnaping Americans. And they and this is progress.
Brian Kilmeade [00:09:53] So Gina Raimondo is now, as secretary of commerce, is now touching down in Beijing. She’s there making some statements. And she says that the secretary says she wants to find actionable, concrete steps where we can move towards a commercial relationship. But she offered no details. One manner to be discussed promoting Chinese travel and tourism in the United States with Iran, though noting that recent easing of oils frictions on the Chinese group’s visit in the U.S.. So what’s your reaction to her following Blinken and Yellen to go over to China and Kerry?
Doug Burgum [00:10:29] And if.
Brian Kilmeade [00:10:29] Jerry.
Doug Burgum [00:10:30] Gene is the fourth one, if she does not, shouldn’t say it in that press release. And if they don’t talk about using energy as our key point of leverage, China imports 10 million barrels of oil a day and this administration does not bring it up with a country that would not run if that oil supply was interrupted. I mean, China would shut down. They’ve got other economic problems right now. But we can be energy dominant in this world and we’re not even talking about it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:10:56] And we’re letting them get discounted oil from Russia and circumvent the sanctions while India is doing the same thing, though. Yes. And we should be we should be pressuring them to knock it off if they want to be allies. I understand people have complex relationship in this world, but we do have certain amount of certain amount of leverage. China’s economies are doing well. People just assume because they’re spending everywhere, that they do well. They’re used to go at 8%. Now they’re growing at 3% through the year through the lockdowns. People losing confidence. Nobody is spending there. They lose confidence in their government. They see a quality of life drop and they can’t get 18 to 25 year olds a job. This is an opportunity, isn’t it?
Doug Burgum [00:11:33] It’s a fantastic opportunity. And Brian, you’re so right on those statistics. On the 18 to 20, you know, the 24 year olds, they stop releasing the unemployment data a few weeks ago because it was so bad, it was up in the twenties. They have 10 million college graduates that just coming out of school that don’t have jobs, and they’re facing a real estate collapse that could make our 2008 crash look like nothing. But you know what countries do when you’re a dictatorial leader and your economy is collapsing, you go to war. That’s the way you really I mean, so I think the risk on Taiwan is higher than ever. And then just like we didn’t do the right deterrence to stop Putin, we’re not doing the right deterrence to stop China from entering Taiwan.
Brian Kilmeade [00:12:09] Governor, hold on a couple more minutes using the Brian KILMEADE Show. It’s a it’s a great Monday. Bottom of the hour. Jonathan Turley, we bring you inside these developments today in the courtroom in Georgia and what it means see in the Brian KILMEADE show. Governor Doug Burns here just fresh off the debate just a few days ago where he did real well and performed with a ripped Achilles tendon, which they told you, Governor, just let it heal because we can’t even it’s not a matter of reattaching it. So you just got to like, cut it out.
Doug Burgum [00:12:37] Yeah, well, I tore it so high up by the calf that there’s not any way that a surgical option is being recommended. And so it’s going to be just eight weeks of progressive casting. And and, you know, we’ll just, as we say, North Dakota cowboy up and get through it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:12:51] So you have to be on your feet in New Hampshire and Iowa and Nevada, perhaps.
Doug Burgum [00:12:55] Yeah, we went straight from the debate next three days in New Hampshire, we’re not letting us slow down one on one bit.
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:01] Where they just give you a whiskey and a rag and they weigh it down and let you bite down on it. So go. I was just telling you and we were going over with the New York Minute. What’s going on with illegal immigrants here? You told me a fascinating stat because you were just at the border yourself. 98 countries represented extremely through the border. But what else could you tell me? Since Joe Biden took over?
Doug Burgum [00:13:20] Well, just the total numbers. I mean, even came out on the debate stage. One of the candidates and one of the hosts, you know, were tossed around numbers like six or 7 million and nobody bats an eye. That’s Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island. And you can throw in his home state of Delaware, Biden’s home state and Montana, and that gets you to six or 7 million people. So think of like every man, woman and child in those states, equivalent of those states crossed the border illegally into our country, and then we’ve relocated your governor. Those are the ones we know about, because when I’m down there, the discussion at the border is these are the ones that have been, you know, apprehended. And they know there’s a group called the Galway’s, the Galway’s numbers like, you know, add 50%, add another three or four states on top of that.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:05] And Governor, here’s the thing. If I told you you got a house, you got to feed, you got to get laundry service to 60,000 people where a hundred thousand would pass through the North Dakota, What would you say to me? What would that do to your budget?
Doug Burgum [00:14:16] Well, it would it would crush any place. I mean, there isn’t any.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:19] It’s crushing New York.
Doug Burgum [00:14:20] It is. It absolutely. And it makes absolutely makes no sense at any level. And of course, let’s just talk about it. You know, since Biden has taken office, the equivalent of four Vietnams have occurred in terms of deaths related to fentanyl overdoses.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:34] Unbelievable. So, Governor, best of luck out there. You’re close to qualifying for the second debate, right?
Doug Burgum [00:14:38] We’re right on. It will be on. We’ll be there for the second debate and looking forward to it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:41] All right. Governor Bergen playing hurt, but having a good time.
