President Trump Nominates North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as Next Secretary of the Interior

President Donald Trump has chosen North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to serve as the Department of Interior’s next secretary.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is a Cabinet-level agency that manages America’s vast natural and cultural resources.

The announcement came during a glamorous gala at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Thursday evening, where Trump shared his vision for tackling inflation, energy costs, and bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Introduced by Hollywood legend Sylvester Stallone, Trump delivered a heartfelt and characteristically candid speech. Touching on the struggles of everyday Americans, he recounted a poignant story of an elderly woman forced to return an apple due to skyrocketing grocery prices.

“That should not be happening in our country,” Trump said, adding, “It’s not going to happen here. We’re going to make it a much different place. We’re going to slash energy costs. We’re going to get your energy bills in half, and that’s going to bring down the cost.”

Trump couldn’t contain his excitement and teased the audience before formally announcing Burgum’s new role.

“We have a big announcement, and I won’t tell you the exact name. I think he’s an incredible person. He got an unbelievably wonderful wife named Kathryn. So I won’t tell you his name. Might be something like Burgum,” Trump said.

“He’s from North Dakota. He’s going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position. So everybody’s waiting. There he is. Hi, Doug. He’s going to be announced [Friday], and we have somebody else that’s probably coming up with him to be announced, who’s a big one,” Trump added.

“We’re going to do things with energy and with land, interior, that is going to be incredible. I look forward to doing the formal announcement, although this is a pretty big announcement right now. Actually, he’s going to head the Department of Interior, and he’s going to be fantastic… But we’ll make the formal announcement tomorrow [Friday].”

Trump’s announcement also promised a crackdown on the inefficiencies and corruption plaguing federal agencies.

“We’re going to reduce regulation, waste, fraud, and inefficiency, and these two guys are going to find a lot of it. We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken, and failing bureaucracies, and that’s what we’re going to be doing,” Trump said.

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Recall that on June 21, NBC reported that President Trump had narrowed his VP search to Vance, Burgum, and Rubio.

On July 8, Trump confirmed to Sean Hannity that Vance, Burgum, and Rubio were under consideration.

On June 16, J.D. Vance convincingly won a VP preference straw poll conducted by Richard Baris at Turning Point USA. Among the 1,986 attendees polled, Vance received 43% of the vote.

Tim Scott received 15%. Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio each received 7%. However, the Turning Point faction represents only part of Trump’s coalition.

Turning Point favors the populist Vance, but Burgum boasts executive experience in the private sector and as governor. Vance, Burgum, and Rubio spoke against Trump in recent years but reconciled with the President.

Now, Vance serves as the Vice President-elect, with Marco Rubio named Secretary of State and Doug Burgum appointed as Secretary of the Department of the Interior.