'This Week' Transcript 8-6-23: John Lauro, Rep. Pete Aguilar and Gov. Doug Burgum
Interview
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Well, George, good morning, great to be on with you. And I -- and I appreciate the question, but, you know, there's an entire industry built around commenting on President Trump, and -- and I'll just leave it to the pundits. I mean, we're in a position today where, when we're out talking to voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, they're not asking about the indictments. If they want to, they can turn on a cable news network and watch that seven by 24.
But what they are asking about is inflation. You know, prices are up almost 30 percent versus two years ago. They're paying too much for their gas. They're paying too much for their food. They're concerned about our relationship with China. And -- and these are the things that we're focused on in our campaign every day because, as you said in the lead-in, we have an opportunity to improve every American life.
We've got to be looking to the future, not to the past. Presidential campaigns should be about the future, not about the past. And that's what we're bringing, that voice to this -- to this campaign.
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George, again, I just have to say, you guys -- I just listened to 15 minutes of legal debate on this thing and -- and I'm sure you could run it again, 7 by 24. But what I know is that I'm running against Joe Biden and that's what we're going to be talking about, and, of course, not a mention in the last 15 minutes of, you know, Hunter Biden or the laptop.
Americans out there do concern. There are people on the ground that are not watching these Sunday programs that are saying, you know, why is the -- why is the DOJ defending Hunter Biden and why are they attacking President Trump?
It does seem political to people and I think the folks in Washington have to understand that, you know, if they're surprised why Trump is leading the polls, it is basically people pushing back and saying, hey, we don't trust the system. And that's a bigger problem for America in any case --
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I'm not a lawyer. I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm -- I'm someone who leads and operates businesses. It's something -- I care about the people of this country, and you're asking me, you know, basically a legal question.
We're focused on the future. There are just so many people that want to weigh in on this topic around the clock. And you know who loves it when all we do is talk about this? Of course, President Biden does because then we don't have to talk about inflation or Afghanistan or the Russian invasion, the fact we're in a cold war with China.
And you know who else loves it? China loves it when America is divided like this and talking about the past. This is perfect. This is how democracies fall is when citizens lose confidence in their institutions.
When I'm president, the number one thing we're probably going to have to do is rebuild trust in the actual institutions that are the foundational thing, because right now, Americans are not trusting. That's the signal that you're getting is that people don't trust the system and that's -- and that's a scary thing for our country.
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I believe that the election -- that Joe Biden won the election and I believe we have to move on to the future. But I do believe there were irregularities in terms of how the election went and those are going to be explored. The court is -- courts will go through all of that and they'll do that.
And, again, panel after panel talk about it, but everybody is innocent until proven guilty. That's the way the system works in America.
And we should be talking about the energy, economy and national security. We've got a wide open border. I'm going down to see North Dakota National Guard troops at the border tomorrow. I've been down there before.
But, you know, with 110,000 overdose deaths last year in America, 107,000 the year before, that's 300 people a day. Could you guys run a panel on that and talk about why are we losing sons and daughters every single day to fentanyl that's coming into our country, that's being manufactured by China?
Because when we're on the trail and talking to people who come to us and say, we lost our niece, our nephew, our son or daughter, they're concerned about that. They're concerned about why isn't the federal government doing its job? Part of the job is national security and part of that job is protecting our border. Why aren't they doing that?
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I believe your question about -- you're basically saying, you know, when -- and you know the position that I'm starting from, George, eight weeks ago, we launched our campaign. We're just getting started.
Most of America doesn't know who Doug Burgum is. It's the job of a campaign to try to explain to people. When I was in business and we were a start-up and started with ten kids in North Dakota and built a 2,000 -- you know, a billion dollar company. When -- a first trade show I went to, there were 64 companies there.
We didn't start by saying, oh, we think the guys that are in the lead have got all these problems. We talked about what we could do for the customer. What we could do for our partners, what we could do to improve their lives and their businesses.
We're doing the same thing here because when you're starting where we're starting right now, we have to talk about what we can do to get this economy running instead of crawling. How we can solve energy. Everybody is paying too much for their gas and energy.
And we're empowering foreign dictators. China imports 10 million barrels of oil a day, and we send leaders over there and don't even talk about it. Americans not just independence, that could be American energy dominance. We could -- we are literally have an unstable world. And every question we get is about the past and not the future. I'm running for the future of America. And we're going to keep talking about that at every stop.
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Thank you, George.
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