Partway through his latest “Meet the Press” appearance, Gov. Doug Burgum tried to impress one viewer in particular with a bizarre claim. “Donald Trump, at the end of his term on January 20th, left the White House,” the North Dakota Republican claimed. “We had a smooth transition.”
We did not have a smooth transition.
Soon after, in the same interview, NBC News’ Kristen Welker noted that the former president spent much of last week’s debate brazenly lying. “As someone who is on Donald Trump’s short list to be his vice presidential nominee, do you think he should stop saying things that are not true?” the host asked.
“[E]verything that he said on Thursday night, he’s been saying before,” the governor replied. “So this is not news.”
It’s a defense rooted in the idea that deliberately deceiving the public is acceptable, just so long as the politician peddling the lies repeats the same false claims more than once.
But perhaps most importantly, Welker asked Burgum whether he’ll accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. The guest said he would — just so long as Burgum considers the race to be “free and fair.”
WATCH: Gov. @DougBurgum (R-N.D.) says he’ll accept the results of the 2024 election if they’re “free and fair.”
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) June 30, 2024
Burgum: "I’ve never commented on a bill before it reached my desk. I'm not going to comment on an election before it happens." pic.twitter.com/skwZBjZcG9
As regular readers know, those eager to become Trump’s running mate have come to an unfortunate conclusion: They almost certainly won’t make the Republican ticket if they say categorically that they’ll accept the 2024 election results. After all, the former president is refusing to commit to honoring the results — the same posture he adopted four years ago — so the GOP’s prospective vice presidents are sticking to the same script.
Months ago, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik helped get the ball rolling, refusing to say whether she’d vote to certify the results of the 2024 election. More recently, Sen. Tim Scott appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where host Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed the South Carolinian to simply say, “yes or no,” whether he was prepared to accept the results of the upcoming presidential election. Scott refused.
In May, Sen. J.D. Vance told CNN that he “plans“ to accept the election results, but only if they meet the Ohio Republican’s undefined standards, and soon after, Sen. Marco Rubio dodged the question entirely.








