Republican presidential candidate Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) told Breitbart News that “American voters lost” Wednesday’s GOP debate because it was designed to be “great for clickbait and great for ratings” rather than to inform the voters.
Burgum told Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle that the GOP debates “aren’t really presidential debates” because candidates are not asked questions about “the important issues.”
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“The role of a presidential debate should be to help the voters get educated about who the people are; what their choices are,” Burgum said as he faulted the moderators for not testing “the depth of knowledge that the candidates have on important issues.”
Burgum said Wednesday’s debate was “frustrating” because “if I hadn’t interjected, I wouldn’t have gotten a question until the 43rd minute of the debate.”
Burgum said the debate was designed “to create conflict between candidates, because that’s great for clickbait and great for ratings, but it’s not great for voters.”
Although he feels he won Wednesday’s debate, Burgum said, “the American voters lost something that night.”
Republican presidential candidates, from left, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and former Vice President Mike Pence, before the start of a Republican presidential primary debate hosted by FOX Business Network and Univision, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark Terrill)
“I know a lot of people that I talked to said, ‘Hey, I tuned in and I shut it off, because everybody talking over each other,’” Burgum explained.
Burgum said that, along with jobs and the economy, national security may become the defining issue of the 2024 election, and he called out President Joe Biden’s administration for being soft on China.
“The fact that China is the world’s largest importer of energy, and we’ve got four cabinet officials from the Biden administration that go to China this summer, and they don’t talk to China about energy: they’re too busy trying to kill U.S. energy, as opposed to use it as the biggest lever. The biggest club we have, in any cold war with China, is our energy policy,” Burgum said.
The governor also mentioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would have never invaded Ukraine if we hadn’t let all of Western Europe get dependent on Russian energy versus U.S. energy.”
WATCH — Burgum Rips FOX/Univision Debate: The American People Lost Tonight:
Burgum also criticized Biden’s green energy vehicle agenda for helping fuel the United Auto Workers current strike against the big three automotive manufacturers.
“So, no one has thought through the physics of actually the grid: We’re actually destabilizing the U.S. electric grid in pursuit of something where we’re subsidizing a car. We’re subsidizing the car, which then we’re also subsidizing that car manufacturer,” Burgum said. “Of course the workers want in on that. They’re not getting their piece. The Biden administration said they were helping them. The UAW strike, you need about two thirds less workers to build an EV than an internal combustion.”
“We can have clean U.S. fuels. If you’re on liquid fuels from the USA, you’re on Team Clean Energy. And you’re on Team USA. If you’re for EV batteries, you’re on Team China,” Burgum declared.
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Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.