US President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he plans to select North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as his nominee for Secretary of the Interior.
“We have a big announcement, and I’m not going to tell you, I’m not going to tell you the name of it, the exact name,” Trump teased during a speech for the America First Policy Institute at Mar-a-Lago. event. “I think he’s an incredible person, he’s got an incredibly beautiful wife named Kathryn. So I won’t tell you—her name might be something like ‘Burgum’. Burgum.”
“He’s from North Dakota. He’s going to be announced tomorrow for a very big job,” Trump added before pointing to Burgum.
A few minutes later, he said, Burgum is going to “head the Department of the Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic.”
Reached for comment, Burgum spokesman Rob Lockwood said the governor’s team was waiting to comment until tomorrow, when Trump would make an official announcement.
Shortly before Trump’s announcements NBC News asked In Burgum, there were talks about whether there is a candidate for the secretary of internal affairs.
“There was a lot of discussion about a lot of different things,” Burgum told reporters.
“Nothing is true until you read it on Truth Social,” he said.
Burgum had become a familiar presence on the campaign trail, challenging Trump and the president-elect considered earlier He chose her as his running mate before agreeing with JD Vance, now the vice president-elect of Ohio.
The governor of North Dakota has a business background and a a software company to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion in stock. Burgum later served as a senior vice president at Microsoft until 2007 and continued with other business ventures in real estate and venture capital.
He was first elected governor in 2016 and re-elected in 2020.
He ran a long presidential campaign and then dropped out of the race in December 2023 not suitable for the latest discussions.
Catherine Koretsky contributed.