Exclusive — Interior Sec. Doug Burgum: We’re Trying to Keep Things Open Unlike During the Obama-Era Shutdown
 

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Exclusive — Interior Sec. Doug Burgum: We’re Trying to Keep Things Open Unlike During the Obama-Era Shutdown

Interior Sec. Doug Burgum

Hannah Knudsen
3 Oct 2025


The Trump administration is not trying to inflict pain on people during this Democrat shutdown, unlike the former Obama administration, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during an appearance on Breitbart News Daily.


“When there was a government shutdown, when Obama was in office, the point from the government was to make it hurt as much as possible, and I remember him shutting down parks and memorials and like things that, like the Washington Monument, like you can’t even go near it,” host Mike Slater recalled.

“And your goal, you just said, is to minimize the impact that this is having on people. That sounds like opposite things,” he observed.

Burgum reminded listeners that the Obama administration went out if its way to hurt people during that shutdown.

“What Obama did was I’d say nothing short of diabolical,” Burgum said. “They actually paid, using government money, to an erect a fence around the World War II Memorial in D.C. It’s on the mall. It’s open. It’s just an open space with fountains. And you could walk through there and like, you know, folks like my dad, who fought in World War II as a sailor in the Pacific, you know these honor flights come in from around the country.”

Yet, when these veterans came to see the memorial under Obama, there was a fence blocking access to it.


“They couldn’t even walk through or come through in a wheelchair to see the World War II monument. The thing never has a fence around it. They had to create a fence around it just to send a signal that it’s closed,” he said.

“So spending government money to try to inflict pain on veterans, but none of that’s happening here with, you know, President Trump,” the Interior Secretary made clear. “We’re fighting to make sure that we keep things open and just get the messaging out that, you know, hey, call your Democrat senators and say, ‘Why are we shutting down services when the Republicans have already passed a continuing resolution saying we’re going to keep funding exactly the way it is?'”


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From Breitbart
Link: https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2025...-era-shutdown/





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