At the second GOP presidential debate, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum sought to raise his profile for Republicans who barely know who he is.
Speaking from the stage at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, the software billionaire, fought to highlight his successful policies, derived from experience in the business world in his small Great Plains state.
“The reason why we’re not talking about education or health care or safety being a problem in North Dakota is because we have a business leader. I’ve got more experience as a business leader than, I think, this whole group combined. I know I’ve created more jobs than everybody else on this stage, thousands of high-paying jobs that have real meaning,” Mr. Burgum said.
“So, as a business leader, you come in, and you treat the taxpayer like a customer.”
He spoke of his success dealing with teachers’ unions, which some of the other candidates had denounced for their “corrosive effect on public education.”
In trying to get his points across, Mr. Burgum frequently interrupted other speakers at the event moderated by Fox Business Network host Stuart Varney, Fox News Channel host Dana Perino, and Univision anchor Ilia Calderón.
He was warned by Ms. Perino at least twice. At one point, she threatened to cut off his microphone, triggering laughter in the audience.
However, Mr. Burgum drew some admiration on social media from those who like his pro-business, big-picture view of things.
“It needs to be said,” posted conservative commentator Byron York on X. “Burgum used gimmicks to get on stage, he’s had to struggle to get attention, but he’s been good tonight. Better than several others.”
“He is brilliant on the economy and strong on China,” posted Charles V. Payne.
“Doug Burgum seems to be the only one on stage that understands that the government is causing the problems, and the only way to fix it is to stop government meddling in private industry,” posted Harrison Krank.
“Doug Burgum elbows his way into the UAW strike debate by blaming it on Joe Biden’s electric vehicle push,” Townhall.com posted on X.
Mr. Burgum tried to steal some of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s thunder as a can-do governor who has delivered.
“I’m just gonna say right now when you say nobody else has done it,” Mr. Burgum told him. “The energy plans that have all been announced in the last month by these other folks on stage—we’re already doing it in North Dakota. The border plans we already talked about? We’ve got troops down at the border, flying helicopter missions from North Dakota, from San Diego to the Gulf Coast, trying to stop transnational criminal organizations from inflicting the invasion and the mass casualties in our state. And on the energy policy we’re already doing.”
Mr. Burgum cited other issues he'd led or fought the Biden administration on in areas like the energy economy and national security.
To his claims he wants to shrink the size of government, Mr. Varney said, “It’s been a century since any president has done that. Why would you be any different?”
“Because we do it, we’re doing it, we’ve done it in North Dakota,” Mr. Burgum responded. “When I took office, we shrunk the state budget general fund by 27 percent, in the first four months I was in office, and all the trains are still running on time.”
“Why? Because you had a business leader that was actually there. Inside of every government job, there’s 10 or 20 percent of mind-numbing, soul-sucking work that even the state and federal employees don’t want to do. And you can engineer that work out of the job. That would free up, right there, 20 percent of 2 million civilian employees.”
“And by the way, we’ve got 10 million jobs open. They have plenty to do, and they could be generating taxes instead of being paid by taxes.”
“If you have somebody that understands that, having worked in technology for 30 years, everything we had to do would be better, faster, and cheaper the next day.”
