"Face the Nation," June 11, 2023
Interview
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Well, John, you've -- you've written, and written eloquently, about the presidency being the hardest job in the world.
And I think part of -- part of your thesis was priorities. And this is something that we've been talking about. We're on day four on the campaign trail, and talking about that, and sort of we make sure that people understand who we are, why we're running and what we'll do.
And who we are, I'm a small-town kid from -- in North Dakota. I have had jobs growing up where you shower at the end of the day, not at the beginning of the day, went from those small-town roots. My dad died when I was a freshman in high school. I got a little bit of farmland, mortgaged that.
That became the seed capital for a startup software company, which grew into a billion-dollar company, with small-town kids from all over North Dakota working for that company.
And we had 130,000 customers and 120 companies. It's like one of these only-in-America type stories. And the reason why we're running is, we know that, now having been governor for the last six-and-a-half years, I know, when you're in the top spot and executive role, how you pick your priorities, what you focus on.
You have an opportunity to improve the life of every citizen. And that's what we're planning on doing, is improving the life of every American and bringing out the best of America. And how we're going to do that is, we're going to focus on three things.
The economy, it's touching everybody right now. Energy policy, that touches everybody right now and completely related to national security. Those three things are interrelated. And, right now, we feel it's not just a course correction, but the Biden administration is 180 degrees in the wrong direction on the economy, on energy policy, and on national security.
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And that's what we're going to focus on and talk about in our campaign.
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Well, I -- I have only made one campaign promise so far. And that's, if -- if elected, I will get down to the -- to the southern border in the first two weeks, not take two years, like Biden did.
And I can also tell you that, when president and when we leave the office, that we will follow every rule related to handling classified documents.
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Well, I think, obviously, the way we've conducted ourselves when I was a CEO, when I have been governor, when you have the responsibility of the top spot, it's important to make sure that you're -- that you're not only doing a great job for the people you're serving, but when you're -- you're the officeholder for a period of time, and there's a dignity and a discipline that goes with being a governor and goes with being the president.
And, certainly, we would -- we would strive to uphold that going forward, because it's a -- it's such a key institution going forward. But, yes, absolutely, that's what we -- we'd be focusing on making sure we're doing that. And, like I said, you've written about the importance of that.
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Well, I think it's not just silent.
I -- Governor Spencer Cox of Utah doesn't call it the silent majority. It's the exhausted majority. But the majority of Americans and the people that are touched every day by these issues of inflation, of -- of government red tape, of high gas prices, of an open border, it's affecting every American, they're not on social media.
They're not watching the cable news programs. That's the majority of Americans. And so I think, again, in the tech world, we always said, hey, when you're building a global world-class company from nothing, you've got to separate what's signal and what's noise.
And there's a lot of noise. And a lot of that noise is in the echo chambers on the edges. And that -- that exhausted majority in the middle, they're yearning for leadership that's going to come and talk to them and listen to them about the issues that are affecting them in their everyday lives.
And just in the few short days we've been on the trail, we know that. In the two days in Iowa, yesterday here in New Hampshire, there are people that want to talk about the issues facing this country and how it affects them and their lives every day.
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Well, when we talk about the best of America, growing up in a small town, the best of America is when neighbors help neighbors.
When -- when -- when a farmer in North Dakota falls ill, the neighbors rally around, whether it's to get the crop planted or the crop harvested. Every spring in western North Dakota in the Badlands, when it's time for spring branding and roundup, the neighbors show up. They couldn't get the work done if they weren't neighbors helping neighbors.
And we need to get back to that. And I think part of what -- our real enemies, when we talk about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, they love it when we're fighting with each other. They love it when we're just throwing insults back and forth at each other.
But we have to approach -- and one of the bywords we have in our administration is curiosity, curiosity to understand where the other person is coming from. And with that, it -- also, I know, America has built its economy around innovation.
And we have the Biden administration completely focused on regulating, you know, regulating our industries out of business, as opposed to focusing on innovation. And the way you get to innovation is, you get there through curiosity and understanding that everybody can contribute to the conversation.
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