724: 'A healer instead of just a technician' (Video)
Plain Talk
The North Dakota Democratic-NPL had a strong recruitment season for legislative candidates. Among them is Dr. Chris Tiongson, a pediatrician seeking a seat in the state House of Representatives in Fargo-area District 41. Running for elected office is a daunting task. It's a lot of work and it comes with a public spotlight, and the public can be cruel, so why did Tiongson decide to take time away from his medical practice to run? "As I've seen over the years, almost 30 years in pediatrics now, there are so many things that are happening outside the exam room that parents and families...
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724: 'A healer instead of just a technician'
Plain Talk
The North Dakota Democratic-NPL had a strong recruitment season for legislative candidates. Among them is Dr. Chris Tiongson, a pediatrician seeking a seat in the state House of Representatives in Fargo-area District 41. Running for elected office is a daunting task. It's a lot of work and it comes with a public spotlight, and the public can be cruel, so why did Tiongson decide to take time away from his medical practice to run? "As I've seen over the years, almost 30 years in pediatrics now, there are so many things that are happening outside the exam room that parents and families...
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723: The young people want to rent, not own (Video)
Plain Talk
Housing issues may be among the most complicated and important issues policymakers face. In order for local economies to grow, they need workers, and those workers need places to live. And they can't just be any old place. They need to be places they can afford to live, and want to live. But that's not easy. A home or apartment building built today might stand for a century or more, but the housing expectations of the public shift from generation to generation. That's one point Adrian Cummings, president of the Grand Forks-based Forx Builders Assocation, made on this episode of Plain Talk. He...
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723: The young people want to rent, not own
Plain Talk
Housing issues may be among the most complicated and important issues policymakers face. In order for local economies to grow, they need workers, and those workers need places to live. And they can't just be any old place. They need to be places they can afford to live, and want to live. But that's not easy. A home or apartment building built today might stand for a century or more, but the housing expectations of the public shift from generation to generation. That's one point Adrian Cummings, president of the Grand Forks-based Forx Builders Assocation, made on this episode of Plain Talk. He...
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722: 'I have no idea where he got his numbers' (Video)
Plain Talk
Some time before the November general election, Fargo voters will have a special election concerning a proposal to city government from an at-large commission, where each member of the commission (except for the mayor) is elected by the whole city, to a ward system, where the city is split into jurisdictions each with a specific representative. "It would establish six wards and one person elected from each ward," former city commissioner Arlette Preston, an organizer behind this issue, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "The candidate would have to live inside the ward and be elected by...
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722: 'I have no idea where he got his numbers'
Plain Talk
Some time before the November general election, Fargo voters will have a special election concerning a proposal to city government from an at-large commission, where each member of the commission (except for the mayor) is elected by the whole city, to a ward system, where the city is split into jurisdictions each with a specific representative. "It would establish six wards and one person elected from each ward," former city commissioner Arlette Preston, an organizer behind this issue, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "The candidate would have to live inside the ward and be elected by...
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721: 'This NIMBY idea, it's scary to think about' (Video)
Plain Talk
Is North Dakota still open for business? That's a question we asked during an interview with Brooks Burgum, co-founder and CEO of Longwater, a private equity and alternative asset management firm. What prompts that question is what seems to be a growing, anti-development attitude among some political factionsin North Dakota. The state once marketed itself as an easy place to do business, but increasingly building things like transmission lines, pipelines, and data centers has become a fraught business. "Where would we be if no one built a railroad?" Burgum, who is the former governor's cousin,...
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721: 'This NIMBY idea, it's scary to think about'
Plain Talk
Is North Dakota still open for business? That's a question we asked during an interview with Brooks Burgum, co-founder and CEO of Longwater, a private equity and alternative asset management firm. What prompts that question is what seems to be a growing, anti-development attitude among some political factionsin North Dakota. The state once marketed itself as an easy place to do business, but increasingly building things like transmission lines, pipelines, and data centers has become a fraught business. "Where would we be if no one built a railroad?" Burgum, who is the former governor's cousin,...
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720: 'Drew Wrigley lost that battle' (Video)
Plain Talk
North Dakota from Attorney General Drew Wrigley's office, and the numbers look pretty good. The rate of incidents per 100,000 citizens for the most serious "Group A" crimes was down 7.4% from 2024 to 2025. Crimes against persons (murder, assault, etc.) were down 3%, crimes against property were down 12.2%, crimes against society (drug and gun violations, etc.) were down 3.2%, and total statewide arrests were down 3.7%. But to hear Wrigley tell it, that's merely the plateau at the top of a rise in crime that he says necessitates the reform to sentencing laws he's been furiously campaigning for...
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720: 'Drew Wrigley lost that battle'
Plain Talk
North Dakota from Attorney General Drew Wrigley's office, and the numbers look pretty good. The rate of incidents per 100,000 citizens for the most serious "Group A" crimes was down 7.4% from 2024 to 2025. Crimes against persons (murder, assault, etc.) were down 3%, crimes against property were down 12.2%, crimes against society (drug and gun violations, etc.) were down 3.2%, and total statewide arrests were down 3.7%. But to hear Wrigley tell it, that's merely the plateau at the top of a rise in crime that he says necessitates the reform to sentencing laws he's been furiously campaigning for...
info_outlineHow does Sen. John Hoeven defined sucess? Before he recorded this interview with us at the Blue Rider Bar in downtown Minot, he'd been touring projects in the city, including what he described as a nearly culminated, decades-long effort to turn a former landfill and Superfund site into something useful for the community.
"We're up here today talking about how we basically, this summer now, are going to get approval after 30 years for that landfill and we're going to turn it into a recreation site and it's going to start this summer,"He said. "But that was 30 years in the making and it didn't just happen on its own."
"To me, that's that's what this business is all about," he continued.
He sees the "Crack the Code 2.0" effort similarly. The original "crack the code" initiative began back when he was governor, and it was aimed at fostering horizontal drilling and fracking technology to unlock North Dakota's oil reserves. That preciptated the Bakken oil boom. The 2.0 initiative is about enhanced oil recovery, to unlock the 80 to 85% of oil in a typical well in North Dakota that's left behind.
This is vital, because currently North Dakota's oil fields are in their decline phase. "We've already declined 400,000 barrels a day," Hoeven said. "And we can't punch enough holes anymore to stay at that level. We're going to continue to decline unless we use enhanced oil recovery techniques."
But that's going to require carbon, and carbon pipelines, and right now those things are deeply unpopular with many landowners who need to sign on to make them possible. The opposition been so fierce, that a long-planned carbon pipeline from Summit Carbon Solutions that was to bring carbon to North Dakota is now going to Wyoming.
"You got to win the hearts and minds, guys," Hoeven said of the Summit project, "and that's what didn't happen there."
Speaking of which, Hoeven, a former governor, also weighed in on the accusations against current Gov. Kelly Armstrong which suggest he's doing something illegal by supporting his preferred legislative candidates. Hoeven says Armstrong is "doing what he's entitled to do."
Sen. Hoeven also discussed the ongoing war in Iran, his efforts to stablize the agriculture economy amid trade wars and soaring input costs, and his reaction to President Donald Trump essentially ending Texas Sen. John Cornyn's career in Congress by endorsing his opponent Ken Paxton (Hoeven had been backing Cornyn).
Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I talk about next week's June primary.
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