Trump’s Vice President Doug Burgum calls Biden administration a ‘dictatorship’

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R) is doing everything he can to become Donald Trump’s vice president — or at least he’s hitting the right talking points for the job.

On Fox News The story On Wednesday, Burgum responded to a montage of pundits concerned about what a Trump presidency could do to American democracy by saying that under Joe Biden, “We are effectively living under a dictatorship today.”

“The Democrats seem to have two strategies,” Burgum said in a clip shared by Mediaite. “One is ‘be afraid,’ and the second strategy is ‘be even more afraid.’”

As far as Burgum is concerned, concerns about a collapse of democracy under a second Trump term are all nonsense. But Trump opponents’ concerns didn’t come out of nowhere; For months, the former president has ramped up his violent authoritarian rhetoric. At a public event last December in Iowa, he refused to confirm to friend Sean Hannity that he would not abuse his power if elected to seek retaliation against his political enemies. Instead, he resorted to one of his favorite tactics: trolling.

“Except for day one,” Trump said at the time. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.” Then he repeated himself for emphasis: “We love this man,” he said of Hannity. ‘He says: ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, except on day one. We close the border, and we drill, drill, drill. After that I will no longer be a dictator.”

On Fox, Burgum insisted, ostensibly about the not-so-great things Trump did as president: “President Trump was our president for four years, and during that time we had peace and prosperity.”

According to Burgum, Biden’s list of sins is long.

“He is ignoring Congress on immigration policy. He is bypassing Congress when it comes to protecting our border. He is bypassing Congress on student loan forgiveness, and he is defying the Supreme Court,” Burgum said. “I mean, those are things that authoritarians and dictators do.”