DNC War Room on Trump’s Picks of “Ultra-MAGA Loyalist” Matt Gaetz, “Misinformation Patient Zero” RFK Jr., “Fox & Friends Weekend Co-Host” Pete Hegseth, “Pocket of Big Oil” Doug Burgum

“Donald Trump picked Doug Burgum to be Secretary of the Interior because he’s a MAGA loyalist who has repeatedly sided with Trump’s billionaire special interest backers over hardworking Americans. Burgum was clear on the campaign trail – he and Trump will look out for billionaires, big oil, and big gas first even if it means canning American jobs and undermining American industry. Just like Trump, Burgum is focused on lining the pockets of the ultra-wealthy like himself — not serving the American people.”

NEW: Donald Trump announced he’s picking Doug Burgum — a MAGA extremist in the pocket of Big Oil — to be Secretary of the Interior.

New York Times: “Trump Picks Burgum for Interior Secretary”

“The North Dakota governor helped strengthen ties between the oil industry and President-elect Donald J. Trump

“President-elect Donald J. Trump has tapped Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota to lead the Interior Department, leading the new administration’s plans to open federal lands and waters to oil and gas drilling.

“Governor Burgum, 68, has longstanding ties to fossil fuel companies and acted as a liaison between the Trump campaign and the oil executives who have donated heavily to it. The governor is particularly close to Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire founder and chairman of Continental Resources, one of the country’s largest independent oil companies, who has hosted fund-raisers and donated nearly $5 million to Mr. Trump since 2023.”

Burgum has long been a cheerleader for Trump’s failed MAGAnomics agenda of rigging the economy for ultra-wealthy people like him and big corporations at the expense of working families. 

Burgum: “Our state has built a strong and growing economy on reducing individual and corporate income tax rates, common-sense regulations and a business-friendly environment, and this federal tax reform legislation – combined with the Trump administration’s tremendous progress in rolling back burdensome regulations – will spread those principles nationwide.”

Burgum: “His policies are all in the right direction. If you’re a billionaire… you should be voting for [Trump].”

CNBC: “Trump VP prospect Doug Burgum and GOP megadonor Harold Hamm are allies in business and politics”

Doug Burgum: “I believe in these economic policies, I believe the tax bill is a great thing.”

Washington Post: “Trump makes sweeping promises to donors on audacious fundraising tour”

“As he closed his pitch at the Pierre Hotel, Trump explained to the group why it was in their interest to cut large checks. If he was not put back in office, taxes would go up for them under President Biden, who vows to let Trump-era tax cuts on the wealthy and corporations expire at the end of 2025.

“Seconds after promising the tax cuts, Trump made his pitch explicit. ‘So whatever you guys can do, I appreciate it,’ he said.”

The Guardian: “Donald Trump’s $1.5tn tax cuts have helped billionaires pay a lower rate than the working class for the first time in history.”

Bismarck Tribune: “Gov. Doug Burgum accepted more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from oil company executives last fall, despite comments he made as a candidate that accepting donations from the oil industry would be a conflict of interest.”

Associated Press: “Big Oil is big funder of Burgum inaugural”

Burgum supports repealing the Affordable Care Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, historic legislation that is lowering health care costs, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and expanding access to cleaner, cheaper energy.

HealthInsurance.org: “In late 2017, Burgum and 19 other Republican governors wrote a letter to Congress, urging lawmakers to repeal the ACA.”

Burgum on whether he would push to repeal the IRA: “Yeah.”

Burgum signed a near-total abortion ban in North Dakota with no exceptions for rape or incest after six weeks — something he was able to do because Trump overturned Roe v. Wade.

CBS News: “Burgum signed into law one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country, an abortion ban that allows limited exceptions up to six weeks’ gestation, and only for medical emergencies at any other point in the pregnancy.”

Welker: “You said ‘America was an unsafe place for women before Roe v. Wade.’ So by your own standard, Governor, is America unsafe for women as a result of Roe being overturned?”

Burgum: “No, it’s not. … I’ve evolved in that position.”

The Hill: “As governor of North Dakota, Burgum signed one of the strictest abortion bills in the nation last year, banning abortions in the state after six weeks of pregnancy.”

Burgum: “Today’s landmark Supreme Court decision returns power to the states where it belongs…Our administration has consistently supported pro-life legislation and this decision is a victory for the many North Dakotans who have fought so hard and for so long to protect the unborn in our state.”

New York Times: “North Dakota became the latest state on Monday to enact a near-total ban on abortion, just one month after the State Supreme Court temporarily blocked a similar ban from taking effect. Under the new law, an abortion in the case of rape or incest would be permissible only in the first six weeks of pregnancy, a time when most women have not yet realized they are pregnant.”

Burgum has consistently pushed Trump’s baseless 2020 election denialism and lies that threaten our democracy.

Kirsten Welker, NBC: “Can you commit here and now today to accepting the election results?”

Burgum: “These hypothetical questions that keep coming up… I’m not going to comment on an election before it happens.”

Welker: “You won’t commit to accepting the election results?”

Burgum: “I will commit if they’re free and fair.”

Welker: “Should [Trump] unequivocally accept the election results?”

Burgum: “I heard him on Thursday night say he would accept the results of the election if it was free and fair and secure. … We had a smooth transition [after the 2020 election].”

Welker: “January 6 was not exactly a smooth transition.”

Burgum: “We have to say that there was a smooth transition.”

Welker: “Trump made more than 30 false claims during that debate. … Do you think he should stop saying things that are not true?”

Burgum: “Everything Trump said on Thursday he has said before, so this is not news.”

Savannah Guthrie, NBC: “One of the last things [voters] remember, of course, is January 6, the president losing the election, but claiming he didn’t, people rioting at the Capitol, here he was again tonight asked point blank, ‘If you lose the election, will you concede?’ And he just doesn’t answer the question directly. He’s always hedging it with if it’s free and fair. And of course, the implication is it’s not free and fair, if he’s not the winner, why don’t you just come right out and say, of course, I’ll accept the results of this election?”

Burgum: “Well, I think you heard him say that at the end, it would be easier for him if everybody thought we had secure elections. But we know in our country, being a democracy, this is a challenge.”

Guthrie: “That’s just a red herring, because I mean, he got to litigate it. He had the advantages of our democracy, and our courts and every other institution, which found that it was a free and fair election, and yet, he’s still on about that. And he won’t say that he’ll accept the results of this election. I just don’t get that.”

[…]

Burgum: “When you’ve got unmonitored documents that don’t have any control over the path of that document, you don’t know where it came from, you don’t know where it’s been, that would never pass any kind of audit from, you know, a quarterly audit from a public company. So I think we all want the same thing in America whether it’s the 2000 election, which was challenged to do down in one county in Florida, the ‘16 election, which people claimed there’s Russian interference, the 2020 election, I mean, three of our last five elections, either the different parties had been saying there was concerns.”

“Donald Trump is threatening the health and safety of every American to reward a notorious liar who has pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories, backed a national abortion ban, spread disinformation that led to a deadly measles outbreak, and left an appalling record of personal behavior — including sexual assault allegations — in his wake. Americans should not have to put their health in the hands of a man who has had a worm eat part of his brain, and Democrats are ready to fight every day against RFK Jr. and Trump’s dangerous agenda.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a dangerous anti-vaxxer who thinks no vaccine is safe and effective, and opposes requirements for polio and MMR vaccines.

Mother Jones: “In July 2023, at the invitation of House Republicans, he appeared at a congressional hearing and declared, ‘I have never been anti-vax. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.’ Yet that same month, during a podcast interview, he asserted, ‘There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.’”

Washington Post: “He has an unenviable history of anti-vaccine advocacy, including peddling debunked claims linking vaccines to autism and leading an anti-vaccine group. He claims he is not opposed to vaccines, though that’s hard to square with his recent comments that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’ and ‘I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated.’”

Los Angeles Times: “Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy founded and chairs, last week platformed a fatuously inaccurate 2013 book claiming that polio isn’t caused by a virus and that the polio vaccine ‘doesn’t work.’ The book was conclusively debunked long ago. But last Tuesday, the organization published an interview with its co-author Suzanne Humphries, in which she repeated her claim that polio is caused by toxins, not the virus.”

FactCheck.org: “At the time, Fridman pushed Kennedy on the issue, noting that those were ‘big words’ — and asked about the polio vaccine. Kennedy then misleadingly suggested that the polio vaccines given to his generation caused cancer — despite a lack of evidence that this is true.”

NPR: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion with the famous last name who’s running as an independent for president, is also infamous for his stances against vaccines. Vaccines are safe and effective and have been credited with stopping the spread of diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, polio and global pandemics. Despite the solid evidence, people like RFK Jr. — with no expertise and who refuse to listen to experts — have spread disinformation about them, playing on false conspiracy theories.”

NBC: “Asked if he would recommend that parents give their children the MMR vaccine amid an uptick in measles in the U.S., Kennedy declined to answer. ‘I’m not gonna—,’ he said, and walked away.”

Kennedy contributed to one of the deadliest measles outbreaks in recent history in Samoa.

Philadelphia Inquirer: “In 2019, Kennedy flew to Samoa, met with government officials and, along with other like-minded advocates, ‘flooded the area with misinformation’ about vaccines, according to FactCheck.org. Vaccinations were temporarily halted, 5,600 people contracted measles, and 83 children died. FactCheck.org concluded: ‘Kennedy … played a part in one of the worst measles outbreaks in recent memory.’”

Los Angeles Times Editorial Board: “But the fearmongering on social media landed a hook in Samoan parents, who now had an example of real risk to their children that seemed to outweigh the abstract threat of a disease that had virtually been eradicated from the developed world over the last generation. […] This is a stark and sad illustration of what can happen when the agents of fear and misinformation (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we are looking at you) convince caring parents to shun childhood vaccinations.”

Just like Trump, Kennedy supports a national abortion ban, which would rip away women’s reproductive freedoms and deny critical health care.

Politico: “Speaking to NBC from the Iowa State Fair, Kennedy said, ‘I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life,’ but added: ‘Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child.’ He said he would sign a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of pregnancy if he were elected president.”

NBC: “A leading conservative anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, praised Kennedy’s position in a statement, calling it ‘a stark contrast to the Democratic Party’s radical stance of abortion on demand. … Kennedy is one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today. Every candidate should be asked, ‘Where do you draw the line?’”

Rolling Stone: “Trump Wants to Ban Abortion Nationwide: Report”

Kennedy’s conspiracy theories include denying the September 11 terrorist attacks.

NBC: “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on social media Friday that it’s ‘hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t’ when it comes to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

Rolling Stone: “In a new interview on the podcast In the Room With Peter Bergen, produced by Fresh Produce Media for Audible, Kennedy told Bergen he didn’t know whether or not he believes the official government explanation about 9/11, including whether al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack, asserting ‘strange things happened.’”

Austin American Statesman: “The post was an apparent reference to Kennedy saying on a podcast last year that he had doubts about the official account of the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, including whether al-Qaida bore responsibility. In the podcast, Kennedy said he was not a 9/11 expert, nor perhaps the best person to comment on the attacks. But, he added, ‘I don’t always accept official explanations.’”

Kennedy has refused to disclose basic medical information, including the fact that he once had a parasitic brain worm.

New York Times: “About the same time he learned of the parasite, he said, he was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning, most likely from ingesting too much fish containing the dangerous heavy metal, which can cause serious neurological issues […] Mr. Kennedy said he was then subsisting on a diet heavy on predatory fish, notably tuna and perch, both known to have elevated mercury levels. In the interview with The Times, he said that he had experienced ‘severe brain fog’ and had trouble retrieving words. Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has railed against the dangers of mercury contamination in fish from coal-fired power plants, had his blood tested […] He also underwent chelation therapy, a treatment that binds to metals in the body so they can be expelled.”

Fox News: “Kennedy Cover-Up: Failing To Disclose A Brain-Eating Worm And Other Problems.”

Kennedy has not denied allegations of sexual assault, instead saying that he’s “not a church boy.”

Rolling Stone: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to an accusation that he sexually assaulted a family babysitter at his home by brushing off the incident, asserting that he is not a ‘church boy’ and had a ‘very rambunctious youth.’”

Boston Globe: “A devastating and detailed report by Vanity Fair last week — including a credible allegation of sexual assault against Kennedy — provided a fresh setback to the already ailing campaign. Asked if other women might come forward with similar allegations he said, ‘I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.’”