North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said Sunday that while he'd vote again for former President Donald Trump, he would not do business with him, but he would be comfortable in a business venture with Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk.
"I just think it's important that you're judged by the company you keep," Burgum, a former business owner who went into politics after selling his software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion, said in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But when asked what he sees as the difference between Musk and Trump, he commented that one must "just look at business track records…that's what I would take a peek at before I make a decision about who you partner with."
But still, Burgum says he'll vote for Trump if the former president ends up winning the nomination and running against President Joe Biden, commenting at a campaign event in New Hampshire Friday that if he was choosing between the two men, it would be a "no brainer" to pick Trump.
"I voted for him twice, and if he’s running against Biden I will absolutely vote for him again," said Burgum.
Meanwhile, he told show host Chuck Todd Sunday that he is focusing his campaign on policy, not culture wars, and he plans to keep that as his focus if he becomes president.
"There’s a broad spectrum of Americans that are really frustrated with the discourse that’s happening at the edge, and part of the reason they’re frustrated is that there aren’t candidates, there aren’t choices on the ballot, to talk about the things that matter to them," he said.
But when Americans end up voting, "they vote about pocketbook issues," said Burgum. "You can’t say to voters, 'Hey, look, you should feel better about the inflation we have this year because it’s half of last year,'" the governor said.
Burgum also said he won't sign legislation on abortion rights, as those and other culture war issues should be left ot the states.
"Guess who loves the most when we’re talking about, you know, culture war issues in the U.S. and fanning the flames on social media, when maybe 40% of those social media accounts are bots?" said Burgum. "We get attacked every day in North Dakota by China, Russia, North Korea, Iran. They’ve all got people that come to work every day to do cyber attacks at the U.S."
Burgum also spoke out about China, telling the program that the United States is in a "cold war in China, but we just won't admit it."