North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum, who is also running for the GOP presidential nomination, said during an interview over the weekend that he would not fight culture war issues if elected president.
Burgum, who became a billionaire working in the software industry, made the remarks during an interview with NBC News’s Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press.”
On the issue of abortion, Burgum said that he would not sign a federal abortion ban “because it should be left to the states.”
Burgum said in the interview that Republican candidates should generally prioritize other issues over the culture war.
“I believe that the president of the United States has got a defined set of things they’re supposed to work on, and it’s not every culture war topic,” he said. “As president, things that you’re supposed to focus on, things like the economy, like energy policy, which is completely tied to national security, and part of national security is the border.”
When asked if he would sign any legislation on transgender issues, Burgum said that focusing on those types of policies is “part of what is going wrong now.”
“Anytime you’re the CEO, if you’re spending time on something that can be done, you know, in a sales office out on the front lines dealing with customers, you’re not doing your job,” he said. “You’ve got to be looking to the future. We need a president that’s focused on the challenges that we’re being faced as a nation, not – not a president that’s going to decide whether a book is in the right section or not in a library in a small town somewhere in America.”
“The reason why we’ve got issues with our economy, with our energy policy, with national security that are just raff, it is because we are somehow, through culturally, media, whatever, trapping the presidency or expecting them to weigh in on every single thing,” he added. “It’s not – it’s not the place that a CEO should be spending their time. It’s definitely not the place where the president should be spending their time.”