EXCLUSIVE: GOP Presidential Candidate Doug Burgum Blasts Fox Business Debate Moderators: Why Did They Threaten to Shut off My Microphone When All I’m Trying to Do ‘Is Answer the Questions That the Other Candidates Weren’t?’

Presidential candidate and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Friday to share his thoughts about Wednesday’s debate and to lay out his vision for the country, without the worry that his microphone was going to be cut off.

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:33 a.m.; broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, in-studio, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael.

On the newsmaker line right now, my friend, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, one of the seven candidates who was on the stage Wednesday night at the GOP debate.

Governor Burgum, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.

Doug Burgum: Mike, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Doug, you and I have known each other for over 40 years. You were a year ahead of me at Stanford Business School. I remember you sort of in the halls talking with the guys that started with Sun Microsystem, and then you went on to be very successful.

Went back to your hometown, Fargo, North Dakota, literally bet the farm, started Great Plains Software – very successful. You ended up selling it to Microsoft for, like, a billion dollars. Then two terms, now, as governor of North Dakota.

You’re running for president.

Here’s my question for you, Doug: I saw that – and I’m gonna call it – it was a clown show debate in the sense that the moderators were awful.

There you were.

You, Doug, are the only guy, you’re the only one on that stage who has great business success, been elected to statewide office, and yet, doesn’t even seem like they gave you an opportunity to speak.

What was your feeling like when you were on that stage?

Doug Burgum: Well, I feel like it was a loss for the American voters.

I mean, the whole point of presidential debate is an opportunity for voters to understand their choices, and for the moderators to press the candidates on the depth of their knowledge on the important topics of the day, and it was billed as an opportunity to talk about the three things that we’re running on, which is at the Reagan Library, perfect place.

Economy, energy, national security – those are three topics that we know a lot about and we were hoping to talk about. But on the economy, I wasn’t asked a question. I’ve created more jobs than the other six candidates on stage combined, I’ve made payroll, you know, every two weeks since my mid-twenties – almost as long as you and I have known each other, Mike, I’ve been making payroll.

No questions on the economy that’s choking every American.

And then on energy, that’s an important topic because it’s really driving the political instability in the world. I mean, it’s what led to Putin invading Ukraine, it’s what’s empowering dictators around the world. Energy’s always been, I mean, with OPEC and everything going on, and now with Biden’s energy policies, we’re enabling dictators.

I’m the only person on stage that has any background in energy.

I’m leading an energy state that produces more energy than most OPEC nations. No questions on energy.

And, and then on China – I mean, you mentioned Great Plains.

My first trip there, Mike, as an entrepreneur, was 1989, I went to a street market.

Great Plains software, you know, being sold for a buck, on a five-and-a-quarter-inch floppy, in a street market. We were selling it for $5,000 a module.

So other folks have just figured out that China’s the problem, I know they’ve stolen every piece of intellectual property I’ve ever built in the last 34 years.

And then the border. You know, I’m the governor that’s actually got troops down there flying helicopter missions and other people are saying, ‘Hey when I’m president I’ll do XYZ.’

I just said, ‘Hey, we’re already doing it on the economy.’

Economy’s sprinting in North Dakota, not crawling.

We’ve got troops at the border.

We’re fighting the Biden administration on all the big issues, pushing back on about 20 different rulemaking processes and winning in federal court on a number of them against the Biden administration.

And on energy, I actually understand how that works.

So, you say frustrating – frustrating for the people that know me, for the people of North Dakota that are like, you know, why are they threatening to shut off this guy’s microphone when all he’s trying to do is answer the questions that the other candidates weren’t?

Michael Patrick Leahy: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was kind of offended when they threatened to shut off your microphone.

You can always come here, and we will never shut your microphone off, Doug.

But here’s the thing. When you look at this process, and by the way, the limited time that you got to speak, you got very good reviews.

Molly Hemingway at the Federalist was, I was watching the tweet, she said, I want to hear more from this guy, Doug Burgum. And didn’t have that chance.

What’s your plan now to get your message out? Because I think, after, you know, being down at 1 percent for a long time in the polls, I think after that debate on Wednesday night, people say, we want to hear more from Doug Burgum.

What’s your plan, Doug?

Doug Burgum: Well, the plan, of course, is we’ve got to just keep pushing out the information about who we are, what we stand for, what our policies and why we’d be the best person to beat Joe Biden and why are the best person to lead this country. And we’ve been doing that in two early states, Iowa and New Hampshire.

So, you know, we’re ahead of Chris Christie in Iowa, ahead of Mike Pence in New Hampshire.

The message is working, but we’re still in a spot where half the voters have never seen, heard, or read anything about it, so it’s reach for right now for us that we’re scrambling on. And, and of course when we get any kind of opportunity to get on and talk about what we’re doing whether, you know, here, thank you for having us on, Mike – we just have to grab every opportunity we have, work around the clock, and keep hustling.

But in those early states, when we start climbing in the polls, because the more people see us, the more they meet us, the more they like us, the more we go up. When we start leading, moving up in those polls, I think that we’ll have more access to national recognition.

But right now, there’s an agenda, and the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are not happy that we’ve got a network that’s trying to narrow the field.

They think it’s primary voters, just like Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s. He said, let’s not let the party bosses and the newspapers decide who’s going to be the candidates, let’s let the voters decide that – and drove the whole presidential primary process we have right now.

So again, we have to keep fighting for democracy and make sure that the early state primary voters are the ones that get to have a say and not other people.

I mean, on a network last night and there was basically a setup to basically say, ‘Hey, you guys should all drop out of the race because the race is over.’

Newt Gingrich was one that was saying that, and I’m like, well, maybe Newt thinks we shouldn’t play the football season this fall, either, because he’s already picked who the Super Bowl winner is.

Michael Patrick Leahy: There you go. Hey Doug, in-studio with me some, a good friend who I’ve known for almost as long as I’ve known you, over 30 years, Crom Carmichael, our original All Star panelist, also a fond business entrepreneur and venture capital investor.

Crom. Has a question for you, Doug.

Crom Carmichael: You mentioned Iowa and New Hampshire and where you are in both of those states. And those are states that are small enough where you can make a real dent with the strategy I think that you’re employing.

What do you have to, where do you have to come in Iowa and New Hampshire to have a campaign that you believe to be viable after those two?

Doug Burgum: Well, the classic, which I’m sure Crom – the classic thing is there’s three tickets out of Iowa. This year I think there’s four because you’ve got essentially President Trump running as an incumbent. You know, I mean, if it’s effectively a race where he’s going to be in the mix no matter what, whether he campaigns there or not.

So I think it’s four tickets out of Iowa. And then I think wherever you place you finish in Iowa, if you want to still be in the race in New Hampshire, you got to finish higher than what you finished in Iowa in New Hampshire. And for us you know, that’s looking very good right now, so we feel, feel great about that.

And then we know that there’s a lot of people sitting on the sidelines, you know, waiting to see who they’re going to get behind. A lot of this is going to break late. It’s going to be a lot of voters making their decisions next January, not next week. So we’re confident that we’re going to be in the mix when that happens.

Crom Carmichael: Are there any more scheduled debates? And, and if so, is there anything that you can do to make them, to make them better?

Because I didn’t like the first debate, frankly, all of the second debate, I didn’t watch it because I thought it’d be a waste of time, but I’ve seen a lot of sound bites, and I’ve read a lot of commentary, and I think my time was well spent not watching it.

But is there a third and fourth debate between now and the primaries?

Doug Burgum: There’s a third debate that’s been scheduled in Miami in November. They haven’t announced, but it’s likely going to be a different network so maybe that’ll be a different format, different rules, maybe there won’t be open mics where it just becomes cross talk – everybody talking over each other.

That was by design, I mean, they did that because they wanted to create conflict. If you’ve seen clips, I’m sure the only clips you’ve seen are ones where two candidates are sparring with each other, because that’s what they were trying to do. Apparently it makes for better click bait.

Doesn’t help the voters understand positions on policy or reasons why someone should leave. But it’s disappointing. I agree with you and probably a good choice of your time to not lose two hours of your life you’ll never get back.

So there’s a third schedule, not yet, of course but we’re, you know, we’re looking forward to being a part of the debates whatever format they are, because we got to keep punching the fight to get our message out there.

Michael Patrick Leahy: We’re talking with Doug Bergen, governor of North Dakota, candidate for the GOP nomination for president. Doug, one of the things I know about you is you’re a very disciplined guy.

In fact I told our producer, well Doug’s going to call, it’s 7:30 to 7:45. I promise you it’s 7:30, probably a minute before 7:30, Doug’s going to call in.

Guess what? That’s when you called in.

I think, though, that you’re very disciplined in the way you conduct yourself in those debates. You don’t get caught in this cross talk back and forth, you’re able to make your points. I think you’ve done increasingly better, and I think the people are interested more and more in that.

You’re gonna keep up with that discipline, I suppose, right?

Doug Burgum: Well, absolutely. The first debate, I think most of America knows I blew my Achilles completely after playing basketball my entire life. I blew it 24 hours before the first debate. So my first debate performance was named “Best Presidential Debate Performance Ever by Someone Standing on One Leg.”

I’ve got that in the books, but now five weeks out from that, I was In a lot less pain on this one, at least in terms of my leg and was really there enjoying the opportunity to talk about the economy, energy, national security, because we’re fighting for the American people.

I mean, with the inflation under Biden, every American family is paying $700 bucks more a month.

Gas is too high; the price of diesel is too high.

These are things that are all fixable with policy, and right now, Biden administration is going 180 degrees the wrong direction on economy, energy, national security – especially border security.

I mean, my goodness. I’ve been down to the border more times than Biden, I’ve got troops down there flying helicopter missions with the North Dakota National Guard.

And it is just the most underreported story in America when you’ve got the equivalent of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Biden’s home state of Delaware, and the state of Montana, that all, that’s the equivalent, six and a half million people that have been let into this country with asylum papers under Joe Biden. And then another million and a half of known gotaways.

And I’m down there on the border with people walking through the Rio Grande over my shoulder, and I’m on a national news network and the first three questions they asked me were about, you know, D. C. swamp questions, not that we’re being invaded.

And then, we’ve lost the equivalent of five Vietnams to overdose deaths since Biden took office. So we’re taking mass casualties.

And then we’ve got four members of the Biden administration – Kerry, Blinken, Yellen, and Raimondo – all over in China. And none of them are talking about energy and China is the largest oil importer in the world.

We have an opportunity to be an energy superpower, sell energy to our friends and allies, stop buying it from our adversaries.

And none of them. The biggest tool we have in the cyber war and cold war with China is our energy dominance. And they didn’t bring it up because they’re too busy trying to kill the U. S. Energy industry.

So it’s like a backwards, Alice in Wonderland world with Biden policy. And we’ve just got to change that and head the other direction for this country for every American to realize their fullest potential.

We can improve every American life when I’m your president.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Doug, Crom has another question for you.

Crom Carmichael: Just a comment. That last minute or two minutes was just terrific in understanding what you believe and where you would take the country. And it’s astounding to me, and I think it’s purposeful, that the media refuses to allow you to express yourself. I think it’s purposeful.

Doug Burgum: Well, I do too, and certainly they had an agenda on Wednesday night, which is to limit my time.

They didn’t, they didn’t threaten to cut other people’s microphones off when they were going 30 seconds a minute past their allotted time.

So there’s definitely an agenda. to try to suppress it, but I just want to say again as we close out, thanks for being on.

You’re in a great state, love Tennessee.

I’ve got cousins that live in North Tennessee, hello to all of them, and you’ve got great governors, and you have a great governor right now. I really have enjoyed my time with Bill through the Republican Governors Association, so, you know, red states are the future hope of this nation.

And you know, having a western state, red state governor leading our country like Ronald Reagan did you know, he was facing a cold war, he was facing high inflation, he was facing the Jimmy Carter malaise – it’s very parallel to what we have now.

You know, I’m the only non-East coast candidate in the mix up there. And every job I had growing up working on the farm, the ranches, working as a chimney sweep to pay my way through college, starting a construction company with my buddies – every job I had was a job where you took a shower at the end of the day, not the beginning of the day.

Michael Patrick Leahy: That’s a great line, Doug.

Doug Burgum: Well, it’s true. And I understand what American workers are going through right now. And when my dad died, when I was a freshman in high school, I watched my mom, a widow with three kids, go back to work and worry about whether or not she was going to be able to make the mortgage.

So I get what economic insecurity looks like and we can change that, but we can’t change it when we’ve got inflation that’s stealing people’s wages and stealing their savings – and that’s all driven by these crazy fiscal and monetary policies that the Biden administration is doing.

So we need somebody that understands technology and cyber war. We need somebody who understands the economy, including energy and agriculture, because that’s food security and energy security is national security.

We’ve never had a candidate ever in the White House that understands how technology is changing every job, every company in every industry, and how it’s changing our military.

So, you know, I appreciate the opportunity to get on and share with your viewers what we can bring to the table at DougBurgum.com.

Michael Patrick Leahy: Governor Doug Burgum, here’s what I’m going to promise you: the microphone for you is always open here at the Tennessee Star Report. We will never shut your microphone off.

Doug Burgum: We appreciate that.

Michael Patrick Leahy: All right.

Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota, my friend, and a candidate for President of the United States Republican nomination.

Doug, thank you so much for taking your time, and I can promise you, our listeners were fascinated by your positions.

Thank you, Doug, for joining us.

Doug Burgum: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Crom.

Crom Carmichael:  You bet.

Michael Patrick Leahy: All right, we’ll be back with more after this.

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio or Spotify.
Photo “Doug Burgum” by Doug Burgum.