North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum reacts during an event for announcing he enters the 2024 presidential race, joining a growing field of candidates hoping to topple Donald Trump and secure the Republican nomination, in Fargo, North Dakota, U.S. June 7, 2023.
Dan Koeck | Reuters
North Dakota governor and Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) discussed his 2024 platform in a Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in his latest effort to gain recognition with voters.
Burgum launched his campaign on June 7 and has since trailed his fellow candidates in the polls, carrying less than a percent, according to aggregated polling from RealClear Politics.
A week after he entered the presidential arena, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 90% of voters did not know enough about Burgum to offer an opinion on him.
Burgum believes in limited government and has stressed his focus on repairing the U.S. economy, energy policy and national security rather than engaging in “every culture war topic.”
Burgum said that he is not running on issues like abortion, transgender bills and what books belong in libraries, emphasizing that he sees those as state issues and “not the place where the president should be spending their time.”
“I’m on the record saying that I would not sign the federal abortion ban,” said Burgum. “It should be left to the states.”
In the interview, he also said he supported the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on affirmative action, which ruled race-based considerations in college admissions unconstitutional. When pressed, Burgum said that the exception made for military service academies “may not” make sense.
Burgum is vying against 11 other Republican presidential bids including frontrunner and former president Donald Trump, who Burgum noted in the interview he would not do business with.
“You’re judged by the company you keep,” Burgum said.
Burgum added later that he would take Elon Musk as a business partner given Musk’s company “track records.”
The former software executive also doubled down on his stance on China, noting that the United States is in a “cold war in China, we just won’t admit it.”
Burgum’s comments come after visits to China from several U.S. officials, most recently Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The meetings have been aimed at stabilizing relations between the two countries amid talks of tightening U.S. investments in China.
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