Despite talk of a potential place in a new Donald Trump Cabinet, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum told Newsmax he is focused on defeating President Joe Biden.
"What we need right now is to make sure that [Trump] wins the nomination, which he's going to, and then we've got to get focused on beating Joe Biden," Burgum told Wednesday's "Wake Up America." "Biden has been a total disaster for this country. He's been wrong on the economy, wrong on energy, wrong on national security. Under President Trump, our nation was safe and prosperous."
Burgum left the 2024 GOP presidential primary race, but endorsed Trump during an Iowa rally Sunday.
Trump praised Burgum after winning the Iowa caucus Monday, calling him "one of the best governors in our country" and saying he hopes he will be "able to call on him to be a piece of the administration. A very important piece of the administration."
Under Biden's "appeasement," the United States is "way less safe," Burgum warned Wednesday.
"We find ourselves in multiple wars and our economy is struggling with all the inflation under Joe Biden, so it gets imperative for every American that we understand that we've got one candidate who's got the strength and the experience to stand up to all these foreign dictators, but also turned around our economy, secure our borders – and that's President Trump," Burgum said.
Meanwhile, Burgum said he still has the "best job in America" as governor of North Dakota.
He added he was not campaigning for a Cabinet position, but against Biden.
"If you're an ag [agriculture] state, if you're an energy state, if you're a manufacturing state like North Dakota, we are literally under an assault," Burgum continued. "There are over 20 federal rulemaking efforts that are going on right now, just a single one of those might be 800 pages of regulations. So these are unelected bureaucrats.
"They're afraid that Joe Biden is not going to get reelected, so they're rushing to the finish line to bury and crush American industries."
Such red tape raises costs for all Americans, he added, "and often that red tape is based on some false ideology that somehow restricting American innovation is somehow good for the environment."
Burgum also called on the party to "unite behind one candidate" after he was asked if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley should withdraw from the race, as that will mean the party can start directing its energy and money to defeating Biden.
"There's a whole mainstream media, labor unions, liberal elite, there's a whole group of people that are going to try to prop Joe Biden up for one more term," he said. "America needs to wake up and get behind someone who has got the strength of the experience to drive this nation forward."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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