GOP candidate Doug Burgum reluctant to talk Trump indictments

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, on Sunday dodged repeatedly when asked for his position on former President Donald Trump’s four indictments during an interview on “Meet the Press.”

Asked by NBC News’ Chuck Todd to state whether he thinks Trump tried to overturn the election results in 2020, Burgum said: “I do trust the voters … they want presidential elections to be about the future, a vision for the future.”

“We have to offer that. If I’m just one more pundit, you know, criticizing everything that’s gone on in 2020, no one’s gonna see that there’s leadership there,” he said.

Todd then pressed Burgum to weigh in on the charges against his 2024 rival: “It’s been interesting to me in a couple of interviews plus the one we’ve just had now, you’ve been quite comfortable bringing up Hunter Biden on Joe Biden. But it’s remarkable to me how uncomfortable you — and you’re not alone here — you are bringing up the legal problems and the charges against Donald Trump. And I get it — it’s fear of alienating a majority of where the party is.”

“But it’s sort of odd, wouldn’t somebody being charged with 91 criminal counts be somebody that you’d want to see drop out of the race? I mean, should they even be running for office?” the host asked.

Burgum reiterated that “voters get to decide who runs for office in America,” adding that “if we’re gonna live in a democracy at some point, we’ve got to trust the voters.”

“I hear you on that but it is interesting that you don’t want to share your opinion on this. I think some voters will be frustrated by that,” Todd responded.

Burgum then appeared to signal that he would be more willing to talk about Trump’s indictments if he had more name recognition: “Well, Chuck, again, everybody’s at a different place. If I had 100%, national name recognition, if I’d run for president before, if I was living in a major media market, and everybody in the country knew me, that’d be a different spot.”

Pressed by Todd on if he feels he should be speaking up to denounce Trump’s efforts “to defend citizens who are essentially part of the law enforcement community,” Burgum said: “That’s not leadership.”

“Leadership is about solving problems. Leadership is about character and integrity. Leadership is about bringing out the best of people. It’s about it’s about respect for others that have views different than you. That’s what it that’s why we’re running,” he said. “And absolutely when I’m president, we’re going to we’re going to lead with respecting everybody. We work for everybody. That’s what we’ll do.”

“Again, right now, our job is to again … it’s not the critic that counts,” Burgum added.

Later in a separate interview on “Meet the Press,” Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who endorsed Burgum, criticized the GOP presidential candidate’s remarks.

“Doug is a friend and I’m it’s kind of sad to me to hear that interview you did, which was a good one asking all the hard questions,” Walz said, noting that he has worked closely with Burgum as governors of neighboring states.

“But look, Doug wouldn’t answer the questions that need to be answered,” he added.

Burgum’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Walz’s remarks.

Trump, the front-runner in the polls for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has been indicted on criminal charges four times this year. He has denied all wrongdoing in each of the cases.

The former president and his top allies — including his former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and a top former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark — were indicted last week on felony charges in connection with efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. Trump was charged with felony racketeering and numerous counts of conspiracy.

He was also indicted by special counsel Jack Smith office this month on charges he conspired to defraud the country he used to lead and attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden. 

In a separate case, Smith brought charges against the former president in June over Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office. A federal grand jury indicted Trump on seven criminal charges in connection with his mishandling of more than 100 classified documents that were discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Earlier this year, Trump was also charged by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in hush money payments toward the end of his 2016 presidential campaign.