The GOP governor of North Dakota. Doug Burgumwho is widely considered one of the candidates for the position of former president Donald TrumpThe president’s vice presidential nominee said on Sunday that president Joe Biden is “unable to serve” as commander in chief.
“Biden … you know, is not in a position to serve right now,” Burgum told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” just days after Biden and Trump met for the first presidential debate of the election cycle.
“All of America saw it,” Burgum said, adding that “our adversaries saw it. Putin saw it. Xi saw it. The ayatollah saw it. I mean, the nation — we keep talking about elections, we face a greater national security risk today than we did Thursday because the commander in chief showed he is unfit to serve.”
Burgum’s comments follow days in which Democrats rushed to bash Biden’s admittedly lackluster performance in the debate, which some in his party called “babble” and “hoarse.”
The governor also answered questions from presenter Kristen Welker about whether he has spoken to Trump about a possible running mate on the candidate list.
“That would be between the president and me,” Burgum responded, going further than he has done before by acknowledging that he has spoken to Trump about a possible role as his vice president.
NBC News reported this month that Burgum is still on Trump’s short list of possible nominees, along with Republican Senators Marco Rubio and JD Vance.
The governor was also asked whether Trump would accept the outcome of the upcoming election regardless of who wins.
In the debate, the former president said he would accept the results if “it is a fair, legal, good election — absolutely.”
“I would much rather have accepted it [the 2020 election results],” he added, before baselessly claiming there was voter fraud in the 2020 election.
On Sunday, Burgum echoed Trump, saying Trump would accept the presidential election results if “they were free, fair and secure.”
“Everything that any of us, whether you’re independent, Democrat or Republican, would expect [are like] “The elections that we have in North Dakota, where people don’t contest them, because we have secure elections, and I think that’s what we need across this country,” Burgum added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
