Doug Burgum

A successful CEO turned governor sets his sights on the White House…This Week on Firing Line.

 

Burgum: Innovation over regulation. We say it every day in North Dakota. Innovation over regulation is how you solve the challenges of today. 

 

He’s the two-term governor of one of America’s most rural states. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum also spent decades in the private sector, a technology CEO who sold his company to Microsoft for more than a billion dollars. With roots in North Dakota that go back four generations, his key issues include energy, the economy, and national security

 

BURGUM: There’s always this idea that somehow the big cities have all the answers. And in some cases, some small town approaches might be the things that do actually solve some of the challenges that we’re facing in our large metros.

 

Burgum earned a spot in the first GOP presidential debate where he stood by his commitment to support his Party’s nominee. As he looks to expand his national profile, what does Governor Doug Burgum say now?

‘Firing Line’ with Margaret Hoover is made possible in part by: Robert Granieri, Stephens Inc. Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, The Asness Family Foundation, Kathleen and Andrew McKenna Through The McKenna Family Foundation, Charles R. Schwab and by The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation and Damon Button. 

 

INTERVIEW

HOOVER: Governor Doug Burgum, welcome to Firing Line. 

BURGUM: Margaret, great to be with you. Excited to be with you. Honored to be with you. 

HOOVER: You, Governor, have an extensive record of success in the private sector, and you have been elected to a second term as the governor of North Dakota. Your family has deep roots in North Dakota, dating back to the 1800s. Your great grandmother was the first woman to hold elective office in the Dakota territory. How has this legacy influenced you? 

BURGUM: Well, one of the things that I find amazing about my great grandmother and her coming to North Dakota after the Civil War with her husband, who was a doctor on fighting for the North, she kept a diary. Some of the earliest history of North Dakota was her writing down and understanding that it was moving from fortress to farm. An actual state historic society in North Dakota, its foundational elements came from the fact that pre-statehood, for over 20 years, she and other women in Bismarck had been understanding the rapid change that was occurring and they wanted to save that, that piece of transition in history. She was a contemporary of Susan B Anthony. She was trying to get the state of North Dakota, would have been amazing, admitted to the union in 1889 with women having the right to the vote at the time it entered the union. She was not successful in that event. So she was a change agent. She was elected to office when she couldn’t even vote for herself, and she was the first superintendent of public schools. So it was an inspiration for me when I read her diaries. It’s an incredible history. But it also, I think, is inspiring to not just myself. We can’t choose our relatives, but I think a lot of people have been inspired by the pioneer women in North Dakota. She certainly is one of them that helped shape our state from the very beginning. 

SOUND FROM THE DEBATE

HOOVER: We just had the first Republican debate. You were able to eke out about 8 minutes of speaking time as you introduced yourself to the American people. Were you satisfied that you were able to distinguish yourself amongst the other candidates on the stage? 

BURGUM: Well, of course, I’m not satisfied. I would like to have the whole two hours to myself, to introduce myself. So I mean, because we would had plenty to talk about, particularly if we were going to talk about the things that matter to this country, like our economy, you know, highest interest rates in 22 years, inflation out of control being our debt downgraded, our national debt at record levels. And then we’ve also, we’re in an actual kinetic war, a proxy war with Russia. We’re in a Cold war with China. We’re in a cyberwar every day with both of them. And we seem to have an intention issue to not focus on the things that matter the most. And one thing I know as a CEO, and one thing I know as a governor is if you don’t have the top leader focused on the things that matter the most, a lot of things can go off the rails in a hurry. And so I would love to have spent more time in that debate talking about substantive issues that are really facing this country. 

HOOVER: Well, the second debate is coming up. It’s scheduled for later this month. If you hit the polling threshold to participate, what did you learn from the first debate in order to do anything differently the second go around? 

BURGUM: Well, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people about actually exhibiting characteristics that people think are, you know, in leadership, which is, when you’re trying to pick a superintendent for your school, when you’re trying to pick a new pastor for the parish, when you’re trying to pick a CEO, you know, for a boardroom, the selection process doesn’t include who’s got the snappiest retort and who can call each other names and who can make up stuff on the fly. That’s not the criteria. I think Americans actually understand what leadership looks like: character, integrity, honesty, actually, you know, sharing facts, staying focused on the issues. So there’s some things we won’t change at all. But certainly next go round, we’re going to be more assertive in interjecting ourselves into conversations than we were last time. Because this whole idea of, oh, I’ve been invoked, and then it ping pong back and forth, and then another 30 minute segment has gone by. You know, it’s not it’s not really helpful. I mean, because I’m sure it’s great entertainment for the public because controversy sells. Divisiveness is a gigantic profitable business in our country. And at some point we probably have to say, is this the right way for us to select leaders to actually lead us through these difficult times? 

HOOVER: So what should be different? 

BURGUM: Well, I think when you’ve got a field this small, you know, have the questions and the debate rules actually talk about the policy as opposed to, again, being, you know, cable infotainment, where, you know, sort of anything goes. We’ve talked to people that are supporting us that said, hey, when all that started happening, and the name calling, I just turned off the TV because I am so sick that this is what America– this is what, this is how we’re deciding a president? So there’s a group out there that’s called an exhausted majority in the middle that is not enthralled by this process. And all you have to do is look at the ratings. You can say, hey, look at the ratings were so high. But that’s only a tiny fraction of the people in this country. Most people in this country aren’t paying attention, don’t want to pay attention because that’s not helpful to them. 

HOOVER: Are the exhausted majority part of the GOP primary electorate? 

BURGUM: Well, some of them are, and some of them aren’t. I think one of the things that we’re doing is trying to make sure that when we’re talking to people, that we’re talking to everybody and they know that, as we did in North Dakota, when elected, whether people voted for us or not, we served them once we were in that office. The job is to serve everyone. It’s not to weaponize things and attack the other party. It’s actually in service to this country. 

HOOVER: It feels like the primary process is less focused on the policies and the ideas than traditionally the conservative movement and the Republican Party have been. And it seems to me that that change and departure has really happened in the last eight years. And yet Trump continues to lead the field. How do you understand that? 

BURGUM: Well, I’ll leave the punditry to the pundits.. But I do know from my own state, which is, a lot of the people that supported President Trump supported us during our elections in ‘16 and ‘20. And I think that part of, part of that part of their voice was, hey, we were forgotten. People don’t, you know, people need, someone needs to remember that we’re here. And this is the hard working men and women of America. And we know that, you know, most of the rural counties in America end up red no matter how the election turns out. And that’s a population we’re very familiar with. So I understand how they feel. And I want them to know that I see them, I hear them, I feel them. But I also know that we’ve got policies and approaches that can deliver better results for them. 

HOOVER: You are the only candidate who is running for president from an overwhelmingly rural state. There is a huge and growing division between urban and rural counties in this country, both culturally and economically. How do you help rural America rebound? 

BURGUM: Well, I think we’ve got a good blueprint on what’s going on in North Dakota. I mean, we’re on track to have the highest GDP of any state in the nation. We’ve got the highest GDP of any Republican-led state in the nation. And we’re doing that with a focus on innovation versus regulation. So much of what comes out of Washington, D.C. today, you’ve got a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C. that writes 800 pages in something like the waters of the U.S.A. and then they try to dump it on a state like North Dakota. And they may have never set foot in our state. And I’ll tell you, nobody cares more about the soil health, the air quality, the water quality, nobody cares about the future of that than the families that are living there and raising their families and raising their crops, building their lives on that for their kids and their grandkids. Nobody cares more. And so in some of this, I go back to the 10th Amendment, which is the federal government has a specific set of responsibilities that were delegated to them. By who? Delegated by the states to the federal government. The states created the federal government. And I’ve seen it as an entrepreneur. I’ve seen it running global businesses, and now I see it a front row seat as a governor with the Biden administration, where they’re always stepping out of their lane and they’re always trying to bigfoot, particularly, you know, states that are actually resource producing states, the people that are feeding and fueling the world, you know, are under attack because of an ideology that’s about regulation. And so I don’t know that it’s as much– you know, I don’t see this thing sometimes as rural versus urban. There’s a lot of economic activity and ideas and stuff that comes from large cities. But we’ve also in the United States, I mean, you know, our large cities right now are not a showcase. If you landed here from, first time visitor to the United States and went to some of our cities today, and that was your impression of America, you wouldn’t be coming away and saying that’s the best of America. But I think in this case, you know, there’s always this idea that somehow the big cities and the big population areas have all the answers for the rural areas. And in some cases, you know,  it might be flipped. I mean, you know, some small town approaches might be the things– block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community might be the way that you actually solve some of the challenges that we’re facing in our large metros. 

OIL PRODUCTION

HOOVER: You have focused quite a bit on your campaign on energy policy. You know, you focused on energy policy and you’ve there’s you’ve said that President Biden’s energy policies are, quote, “wrong on every front.” And you have consistently called on him to increase domestic oil production. Let me get your response to some of the following facts about domestic oil production being on track to hit a record high this year. The Biden administration has approved more drilling permits in its first two years than the Trump administration did in the same period. And there are over 6,000 oil permits that are not being used currently. So what part of Biden’s energy policies are wrong? And what would you do differently? 

BURGUM: Well, first of all, the Biden administration is the first administration since the Truman administration that hasn’t held the lawfully required quarterly lease sales for oil and gas on federal lands. Didn’t hold a single lease sale in the first two years. And so the stat that they’re throwing out that they’ve got you reading is, on the on these things that they’ve approved, those were applications that happened under the Trump administration and they belatedly got them out the door. But they literally didn’t haven’t held the lease, you know, in the first two years. And so I feel that’s a complete misrepresentation. They are actively trying to shut down– And Biden said it himself: ‘no more drilling.’ I mean, he said the quiet part out loud. Read it in the court document. The president of the United States said no more drilling when they’re required by law to actually hold those lease sales. And then, of course, you all know, everybody reported on it, that he went to the Middle East and was fist bumping people and saying, ‘hey, could you increase your production?’ And the State Department went to Venezuela. That’s dirty Venezuelan oil, they don’t even have an EPA, and the State Department was asking if they could increase production for the sole purpose of trying to get prices down before the midterms. They weren’t calling Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Texas, or Alaska, the big oil producing states, and saying, could we produce increased production here? No. They were going to our adversaries and asking them to produce, you know, that energy. So I just, I reject the premise of the question. 

HOOVER: Okay. So then what would you do differently, Governor? 

BURGUM: Well, I think the simple thing is we have to start selling energy to our friends and allies, and stop in this thing where we’re not selling it to our friends and allies. We should be the ones selling it. We decided to put oil price caps and sanctions on Russian oil. And then now they’re, they’re selling below the world price. And who’s buying it? China’s one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil. So we turn Russia into the discount gas station for China. And I’m sure, again, those farmers in Iowa, lobstermen, they would love to get diesel at 20% off tomorrow. They’re not. China is. And so when I say that these policies, Iran, they’re actually empowering dictators, destabilizing the world and hurting the American economy and creating inflation here at home. And that’s all factual. 

HOOVER: U.S. oil and natural gas exports are still at record highs, though, Governor. Exports to Europe have been increasing since early 2021 and now are higher than under the Trump administration. Why is that? 

BURGUM: Well, that’s in part because Europe has finally figured out that they shouldn’t be 100% dependent on Russian energy. But we’re still, even in the lower 48 right now– At the time of the Russian invasion, we were offloading 400,000 barrels of oil a day equivalent into New England of dirty Russian heating oil. Why is that? Because the number one drop in CO2 emissions in this country in the last 20 years has been the conversion of adding in clean U.S. natural gas in replace of coal. And so when we do that, that’s always a good thing if you care about the environment. If you care about the environment, you would say you’d want to have all energy produced in the United States, all baseload electrons, everything produced here because we do it cleaner, safer, smarter and better than anyone else. But when we’re doing that, I’m in New Hampshire, and then there’s New Hampshire. Forty one percent of the people in New Hampshire are still heating their homes with heating oil because you cannot get clean natural gas from Pennsylvania into New England because you can’t get a pipeline permitted because people say, ‘oh, you know, fossil fuels, bad.’ You know, I say pipeline, you say protest. How about we say, if you really care about CO2 emissions, let’s use natural gas as a transition fuel and get it done right now. Because that’s the thing that’s actually really dropping CO2 emissions. So again, this is innovation as opposed to regulation.

CLIMATE CHANGE

HOOVER: Well, speaking of the environment, you have committed to making North Dakota carbon neutral by the end of the decade. Share with me how you’re doing that. 

BURGUM: Well, we’re doing it all through innovation, not regulation. And we have multiple ways we can do this. But, you know, one of the biggest ways we can do it is, through carbon sequestration and in carbon utilization for enhanced oil recovery. And we’ve got a company in North Dakota that takes CO2 off of a gas plant. So you’re decarbonizing a natural gas plant. You put it in a pipe, you compress it, you ship 105 miles, you put it down an oil well. The CO2 stays in the ground. And when the oil comes up, it actually produces less CO2 when refined and consumed than what was put in the ground. So we’ve got an oil company in North Dakota that’s greener than Patagonia. And if the whole goal of that was to eliminate CO2 emissions and you said we’ve got a way to do it right now without having to, you know, shut down every gas station, you know, shut down every, you know, anybody that’s got a liquid-fueled vehicle, you might say, let’s at least have that conversation. But there’s so much cancel culture around climate, we can’t even have a discussion about climate policy. I’d like to have– We’re having a discussion in North Dakota about climate policy. How can we get to zero through innovation? 

IMMIGRATION

HOOVER: I want to ask you about immigration and also about the economy. You visited the southern border last month where North Dakota National Guard troops have been stationed to help with security. And I know you recognize that there is a crisis at the border. There’s also significant labor shortages in our economy that could be helped by some form of immigration reform. How do you think about immigration reform broadly? 

BURGUM: Well, first of all, thank you for acknowledging that we’ve got a crisis. I mean, I think this is, you know, the most underreported story every single day. Because if you take the official numbers from the Biden administration, in two and a half years, six million, six and a half million people, that’s how many people we have a record of that have entered the United States illegally. That’s the asylum seeker number we have. There’s another number which is the got-aways which we see on camera, but we don’t know where they went or where they went to. So the number is larger than that. You know, if people want to enter our country, we’ve got ports of entry. We have 18 of them in North Dakota. We have a 365 mile border. I love when people enter our country legally. And so we should make it easy for people to enter legally, hard to make it illegally. That’s pretty simple. And then, of course, I grew up in a state– we talked about my grandmother. In 1900 in Fargo. 80% of the people living in that town of Fargo in 1900, English was their second language. You know, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Danish, you know, everybody immigrating to North Dakota. You know, we’re very fresh. We understand immigration in North Dakota. We wouldn’t have a state without immigration. But unfortunately in our party, the Republican Party, I don’t think we can have a discussion about a legal immigration policy until we secure the border. That’s part of national security, one of the jobs of the president to do that. And the federal government, that’s their job to do it. And then we need to have a discussion. Because when you’ve got chronic labor forces, labor shortages, that also drives up inflation, which raises the cost for everybody. So we’ve got to balance labor. And one way to do that would be with smart immigration policy. 

HOOVER: You have called for ridding the country of the Department of Education. Ronald Reagan argued for the exact same thing on the original Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. back in 1980, soon after the department had been established as a cabinet level agency. Take a look at Reagan here. 

REAGAN: I would like to dissolve the $10 billion national Department of Education created by President Carter and turn schools back to the local school districts where we built the greatest public school system the world has ever seen. I think I can make a case that the decline in quality of public education began when federal aid became federal interference.

HOOVER: Governor, The Department of Education as we know it now has a budget of around $80 billion, not ten. Do you propose ridding us of the department entirely, and how would you go about doing it? 

BURGUM: Well, I think one of the things that we have to do is not just sort of run around and arbitrarily say this agency or that agency needs to be eliminated. In the case of the Department of Education, that could because we’ve actually got 50 states that all have departments of education. And many of them, like in North Dakota, we distribute it down to 175 school districts where a local school board, where we’ve got government close to the people in making decisions. And so you could just block grant the money out without all of the federal restrictions and the federal interference as President Reagan was saying. Just, if you really want to put that money out there, then give it to them and let them invest it in ways that work for them. Because what works in a small rural school district, even in North Dakota, maybe doesn’t work for the biggest school district we have in Fargo. 

TRUMP

HOOVER: As you approach the next debate, former President Trump remains far and away the frontrunner in this race. He’s leading decisively, as you know, in every single poll. And no individual who has been leading this early and by this much has ever lost the GOP nomination. So what is your plan to get Republican primary voters to choose you over Trump? 

BURGUM: Well, I think the first thing is there’s so many firsts. I mean, every day you turn on the TV, this is the first time this has ever happened, the first time this has ever happened. So I think, again, there’s historically so much volatility in the primaries that we’re just going to keep driving forward with the things that we know are affecting every American family, and driving forward with that plan. And when the voters get to start voting in Iowa and New Hampshire next January, then the voters get to decide. So our plan is to basically get in front of them, have them know who we are. We’re the least well-known candidate on the stage, drive name recognition up. You know, we’re in this because we believe that if we get our message out that people are going to respond and hear that. So that’s what we’re doing right here. And we’re on the ground in Iowa today. I just got done with a week in New Hampshire. And we’re very much looking forward to watching the real response from real voters. Can you climb when they see that they’ve got an alternative that looks like leadership and the leadership that America needs, the focused leadership to help drive us through the tumultuous times that are ahead of us? 

HOOVER: With respect, Governor, I just, I want to just kick the tires on this because there are firsts every day. There are firsts in Donald Trump’s legal challenges, the former president’s indictments. Is that what you’re referring to when you say volatility? Because the truth is there’s not a lot of volatility in the polls. Trump still continues to lead despite all of those firsts. So how do you crack into that very strong base of support the president, former president, still has? 

BURGUM: Well, I mean, things can change rapidly. Things can change overnight. We’ve seen over our history that the people that were thought to be the leader, the undisputed leader, and go back in either party, this is the person that’s going to win, and then something happens and things collapse. And other people, others emerge. And so the only way you find out is actually play the game. I mean, it’s like these hypothetical questions that we’re often asked, it’s like saying, look, in the preseason poll, you know, Tampa Bay is going to win the Super Bowl. Well, then I guess we don’t even need to play a game. The Super Bowl is not going to be till next January. And, and I don’t know who’s going to win the Super Bowl and I don’t know who’s going to win Iowa and New Hampshire. But I certainly know that if you’re not in the game and you’re not competing, then you don’t have a chance to win at all. 

HOOVER: You said at the last debate, Governor, that Mike Pence did the right thing on January 6th. Did Donald Trump do the wrong thing? 

BURGUM: Courts are going to decide that. My goodness, I can’t even keep track of all of it. But they’ll decide that. But, you know, one of the hallmarks of our democracy is a peaceful transfer of power. And I think that, you know, America and the whole world was holding its breath. But here we are. And we just have to go forward. But as the Republican Party, if we’re talking about 2020, that’s the way we lose. You know, the people that love us talking about the past, the Biden administration, Biden’s candidacy totally depends on us talking about the past. But we have to have a peaceful transfer of power. It’s again, that’s the foundation of democracy. 

HOOVER: I hear your rationale and I hear I hear what you’re saying. I’ve noticed that you rarely criticize Donald Trump by name. But I’ve also noticed that most of your complaints about the direction of our politics – the divisiveness and the insults and the focus on the past over the future – happen to typify Donald Trump, who has promised that if he is elected to a second term, it will be driven by retribution against his enemies. And while you supported Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 and have said that you would support him again if he is the nominee, even if he’s a convicted felon at that point, how do you square that with the importance of character and divisiveness and transcending that in our politics? 

BURGUM: Well, if you’re referencing the debate question…

BRET BAIER:  If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party’s choice?

BURGUM: Everybody on that stage, to get on that stage, had signed something that said we’re going to support the eventual nominee. I mean, that was the rule to get on the stage. And so I’m not going to go back and parse that out. But, you know, I’m running for the United States trying to win the presidency, I’m running against all the other candidates, including the former president, because I believe we need character, we need integrity, we need to restore trust and honesty. America deserves to have an opportunity to vote for someone that they can trust, someone that’s got the honesty, the integrity, the vision, the capability and the proven track record to be able to get it done, someone that they know that actually cares deeply about the American people. Because nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. And Theodore Roosevelt said that. He understood that. And that’s why we’re running. 

HOOVER: Governor Doug Burgum, thank you for joining me on Firing Line. We’ll be watching. 

BURGUM: Thank you.