Doug Burgum's Big MAGA Rebrand

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

78% : Since then, Burgum has appeared with Trump at a New Jersey rally where the former president touted his new best friend.
64% : "The Republican state convention in Greensboro seemed like a good place to begin my inquiry into Burgum; any audition for Trump starts with the contestant praising the former president in public.
60% : "The biggest concern is that they take Trump out and Burgum becomes president," he said.
59% : What's my path?'"Left unsaid was that Trump was the path.
58% : On May 31, the Trump jury in New York was heading into a second day of deliberation, and Burgum, who had raced back to New York shortly after the Memorial Day event, was spotted accompanying Trump into the courthouse that morning.
49% : "He made his money in technology, but he probably knows more about energy than anybody I know," shouted Trump.
48% : He giddily spoke of appearing with Trump at the rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.
47% : "I voted for Trump in '16," John Hanson said.
47% : (Burgum has this part of the Trump audition down; Trump was the only other person claiming 107,000 people were there.)
46% : You may know where this is going: Hamm was the same man talking up Burgum's energy acumen to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
45% : Both The Washington Post and The New York Times claimed Trump asked them to raise $1 billion for his campaign in exchange for his loosening up oil regulations.
45% : Why does Trump like him so much?
45% : "I've got people contacting me all the time saying, 'Can you get a message to Trump?
43% : (Abortion had been legal up to 22 weeks before the new law.)
39% : "Everyone asks: 'How can Doug work with Trump?'" he said.
39% : That morning, Trump came out for North Dakota Rep. Kelly Armstrong to replace Burgum as a governor.
36% : The RDO is one of several buildings Burgum has built as part of a downtown revitalization, which is not to be confused with the buildings rehabbed by his ex-wife Karen, a local progressive who many told me was less than thrilled about her ex-husband's embrace of Trump.
34% : The new souped-up Burgum has been reimagined as a warrior for Trump.
34% : Sure, Burgum had dutifully endorsed Trump after his own quixotic presidential campaign died before a single primary vote was cast.
34% : Unlike Trump, Burgum had a reputation as a builder, not a hype artist (no Burgum Tower for him) and in a most un-Trump-like decision, he insisted that the RDO Building, at 18 stories, not surpass the capitol as the tallest building in North Dakota.
34% : Burgum's brand once represented intelligence and creativity but now seemed indistinguishable from Ramaswamy or the others defending Trump on cable news.
32% : Two weeks later, Burgum was one of the few Republican governors to attend Biden's inauguration, infamously boycotted by Trump.
32% : He told NBC's Chuck Todd he would never do business with Trump; "It's important that you are judged by the company you keep," he said.
31% : The number of Republicans in Trump's first term who convinced themselves they could change Trump if only they could get into his inner sanctum was roughly equivalent to the legions of prairie dogs that populate the Hanson ranch.
23% : While Hanson remains confident Burgum would be a restraint on Trump, others wonder what happened to their guy and whether Burgum has morphed into just another enabler.
21% : An hour later, it was announced that Trump was guilty on all counts.
18% : "It was the first year Trump ran, and Doug was running as an outsider," recalled Magrum.
9% : According to Magrum, Burgum vowed: "Fine, you're not going to be invited when we invite Trump out here to do the ribbon cutting.""That's a complete fabrication," said Rob Lockwood, a spokesperson for Burgum.
8% : This made me ask a close Burgum friend whether he was worried Trump would eventually turn on Burgum like he did on former Vice President Mike Pence.
5% : Don't we want someone like Doug Burgum in the room if Trump goes off the rails and starts doing weird things?"Hanson would have a point if this were, say, 2022-era Burgum, a business maverick known for nerdy inquisitiveness.

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