by Charlotte Hazard
With his appeal to moderate voters, North Dakota GOP Gov. Doug Burgum is emerging as a potential vice presidential candidate for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
The latest signals came Saturday evening, when Trump flew Burgum, 67, on his jet to a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, and placed him front and center on the stage, where he forcefully made the case for a second Trump term.
“President Trump respects states’ rights. He cut regulations. He lowered taxes,” he argued. “Working under the Biden regulatory regime is like a wind blowing in your face.”
Trump himself praised Burgum, citing his deep expertise on an issue critical to voters.
“He probably knows more about energy than anyone I know,” the former president said.
Then he offered a gigantic tease. – So get ready for something, okay? Just get ready,” Trump said, without going into details.
Sources recently told Axios that Trump likes Burgum’s gubernatorial experience and the fact that he stays out of drama.
Trump and former first lady Melania Trump also reportedly hosted Burgum and his wife Kathryn at Mar-a-Lago for Easter brunch.
Burgum announced the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential candidacy, but suspended his campaign and endorsed it Trump in January. He also announced that he would not run for a third term as governor.
Before entering politics, Burgum was best known as the co-founder of “Arthur Ventures”, a company that invests in B2B software companies in the US and Canada.
Overall, Burgum has a conservative record when it comes to his position as governor. He signed a bill that bans abortion after six weeks, but does not support a federal ban and says the issue should be left to the states.
He has been outspoken on illegal immigration and deployed the North Dakota National Guard to the southern border of the United States to facilitate with the immense influx crisis.
With Burgum well on his way to the presidential campaign, his top priorities included increasing energy affordability and cutting taxes.
Burgum has been critical of Trump in the past and has stated that he does not believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen, a sentiment echoed by the former president.
“I believe Joe Biden won the election,” Burgum said in a 2023 interview. according to NBC News.
Burgum recently did extensive interview for CNN in which he stated that the main issues of the upcoming 2024 elections are national security and public safety.
“2016 was the year of immigration,” Burgum said. “It’s about national security and public safety now, and open borders are something that most Americans are concerned about.”
He also added that Americans’ main concerns are unrest in other countries and inflation.
“The first rule of electing a vice president is like the Hippocratic Oath taken by a doctor – ‘first do no harm,’” Kyle Kondik, editor-in-chief of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, told Just the News. “Burgum seems like a pretty innocuous choice, and I think it would be OK for Trump. At this point, I don’t think Trump needs much facilitate on his right – he needed it in 2016, and that’s why Mike Pence was a decent choice.
When Burgum was asked on CNN whether he would be Trump’s vice president if asked, he replied that his presence on the “vice president list” was speculation and that the main reason he supports Trump is because of his energy policies because of the positive impact they had on his condition.
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Charlotte Hazard is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Gover. Doug Burgum’s Campaigns with Donald Trump” by Governor Doug Burgum.
