President Donald Trump revealed Thursday that his decision to appoint Doug Burgum as Interior Secretary was influenced by the former North Dakota governor’s wife, specifically, after seeing her in a campaign video riding horses.
“I saw them riding horses in a video,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “And I said, ‘Who is that?’ I was talking about her, not him.”
The president made the remarks while signing an executive order aimed at addressing drug addiction, with both Doug and Kathryn Burgum standing nearby. Kathryn, who has been sober for 24 years, spoke at the event about her recovery from alcohol addiction and was simultaneously announced as co-chair of the White House Great American Recovery Initiative alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
BREAKING: Trump just claimed that he hired Doug Burgum because he was attracted to his wife. What an awkward moment.
“I saw them riding horses in a video. And I said, ‘Who is that?’ I was talking about her, not him. I said, ‘I’m gonna hire her,’ because anybody that has… pic.twitter.com/BE7BqEql0T
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) January 29, 2026
President Donald Trump went on to explain his hiring rationale: “They explained it, and I said, ‘I’m going to hire him,’ because anybody that has somebody like you to be with, it’s an amazing tribute.”
The POTUS returned repeatedly to Kathryn Burgum’s role in her husband’s success. “It’s a great couple, amazing couple, and she is very much a part of his big success,” Trump said. “He was a fantastic success, as you know, having been one of the most successful business people. I saw him campaigning, great governor, two-term governor. He did a fantastic job—North Dakota. And he’s done a great job, and I’ll tell you what, Kathryn is a very big part of it.”
The comments drew swift criticism on social media. “BREAKING: Trump just claimed that he hired Doug Burgum because he was attracted to his wife. What an awkward moment,” Brian Krassenstein posted on X.
One user on X wrote that Trump seemed “so proud of himself yet completely unaware that a normal person would only feel shame.” Another critic noted that when it comes to Trump, he’s “always creepy. Never subtle.”
“This is the same old playbook reducing women to props and ‘tributes’ instead of respecting their agency. Leadership means dignity and equality, not creepy praise dressed up as flattery,” a commenter on Bluesky stated. “I wonder how Melania felt after watching this. So disrespectful!” another netizen shared.
This incident fits a documented pattern. Melania Trump’s husband has a decades-long history of making remarks about women’s physical attributes rather than their professional qualifications.
Epstein said that Trump would try to get his friends to talk about other women while their wives secretly listened on the phone so that he could try to sleep with their now angry wives. This checks. pic.twitter.com/VE69bf58gR
— Hamilton (@SongsByHamilton) January 29, 2026
As a matter of fact, The New York Times documented his attacks on women in 2018, which include mocking Carly Fiorina’s face during the 2016 Republican primary and comparing several women to animals.
A CNN report in 2017 also catalogued similar behavior dating back years before he successfully made it to the White House, which includes his derogatory comments about the weight of comedian Rosie O’Donnell and remarks about women’s appearances on The Howard Stern Show.
In December 2025, President Donald Trump sparked backlash for praising White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s “beautiful face” and “lips like a machine gun” at a Pennsylvania rally. She has been the subject of the commander-in-chief’s appearance-focused comments on several occasions.
For starters, Doug Burgum had been considered as Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick before the POTUS ultimately chose JD Vance. CNBC claimed that the 79-year-old businessman-turned-politician reconsidered selecting Burgum after Donald Trump Jr. sent him a Breitbart article that highlighted Karl Rove’s support for the former governor.
Kathryn Burgum, for her part, served as North Dakota’s First Lady from 2016 to 2024 and championed addiction recovery initiatives through her Recovery Reinvented program. She has been in long-term recovery for over two decades and serves on the board of trustees at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
As of press time, First Lady Melania Trump has not commented on her husband’s public remarks about another official’s wife. On Thursday evening, the mother of Barron Trump attended the premiere of her self-produced documentary, “Melania,” at the Kennedy Center, which chronicled the 20 days leading up to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Produced by Amazon MGM Studios for a reported $40 million, the documentary was directed by Brett Ratner and premiered globally on Friday.
