NORTH DAKOTA ( KXNET )— Independent North Dakota gubernatorial candidate Michael Coachman joined Nicholas Quallich for episode 25 of The Voice of the People. Coachman talked about why he got into politics, why he’s running for governor a second time, and a lot more.

Here is a transcription of the podcast.

Nicholas Quallich: Hello, and thank you for joining us for the Voice of the People podcast here on KXNET.com. I’m Nicholas Quallich and today we’re speaking with the independent candidate for the office of the Governor of North Dakota, and that’s Michael Coachman. Mr. Coachman, thanks for being here.

Michael Coachman: Well, thank you for inviting me. I really do appreciate it.

Quallich: So before we get into it, let’s talk a little bit about you. Of course, some people may not be familiar with you. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Coachman: I was born from a military family. I was actually born in Germany on a military base and lived around from there to Japan to California. I was raised pretty much in Connecticut. When I turned 18, joined the military, served 20 years, went from, so my military career spanned it from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Vandenberg Air Force Base to Germany and to here. We’ve been here since 1990, been involved in the community as far as city council, corrections, city government, and really got involved in the Republican Party way back in the early 200’s or 2000’s. So been quite busy. Maybe some of you know that one of the individuals, there was a group of us who was involved in keeping the Chinese from building an installation here near our military base.

Quallich: I want to go back a little bit, if I may. Why did you decide to join the military?

Coachman: My father was. When I was raised, we had, at the time, we traveled a lot, and I believe that we had a lot of heroes. We had John Wayne, Randolph Scott. My dad, he was one of my heroes. I looked up to him immensely and I wanted to be just like my dad. I was doing that time. My dad was bigger than your dad and my dad was bigger than most people’s dad. And I wanted to be like my dad. My dad had a very much a servant heart. He loved his country. He loved his community. And I wanted to follow in his footsteps and that’s why I joined. It was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done was to join the military. I would believe in being a patriot. Just talking with him was just one of those things that I had a close bond with my dad. My dad was not always there all the time because he worked two jobs to support me and my other brothers and sisters, which there was a total of seven of us. And but he always took time to make sure that we were on the straight and narrow. And everything I remembered as a child being raised on a military installation always positive. He took us to all different places and it was one of those things like, I like what I’m seeing. It was a really very much of a positive atmosphere that my dad raised us on. And I just wanted to be in the military and serve. And he said, that’s what he wanted to do. And that’s what I wanted to do.

Quallich: As you alluded to earlier, not only does your service involve service to the military, also to city council. I myself have never been to Larimore, and I suspect there are a couple of North Dakotans who have never either. What’s Larimore like, and how has it been for you?

Coachman: Larimore is a small town. It has a population that are like 1,200, 1,300 people, and it’s really good. It’s a community of rich. We do a lot of people come on the center of town and we have burgers. We do a lot of different things. Very rich community, love helping each other. When I was on the city council, I really like serving for the people. I wasn’t, as they would say, brought related to anybody. So my opinion was straight across. What was going to be best for the people? I always believed in staying in on the Constitution, and I believe that I’m going to do what’s right for the people. And the people knew that. The people knew that when I was in city council, that I wasn’t going to do it because I related to anybody or anything else. I was going to do what was right that’s going to better the people and the town and not myself. And the people in the community are great people that I enjoy. That’s one of the reasons why I stayed here. They’re a great bunch of people.

Quallich: And you’re still there and now you’re running for, and you have run for office, when did you get the itch to sort of run for a higher office, let’s say?

Coachman: You really want me to go into this?

Quallich: I do.

Coachman: Well, I wasn’t brought up with a lot of politics, okay? So, I believed in doing the right thing. We learned that. We followed the tech order. And people who know what that is, is the technical orders on how you do things. And we are here to serve, to get orders and stuff. So, when I got out of the military, I started going to different QLP conventions and things like that and wanted to listen to people and support people who are doing what’s right. And then I got involved in the resolution committee and I started looking at things and was fighting. And one of the two things that we stood on was the Constitution. We stood on the Constitution to make sure that all our resolutions were going to meet and be passed and be supported by our legislators and whoever else that would run. So later on, I started, as I look at these resolutions, which are really sound Republican principles. I started seeing people not following the resolutions that we have they say they’re Republicans, but they weren’t supporting Republican principles I’m like: ‘What’s the deal with this?’ So if I started seeing things at the convention and I’m like And you know my eyes were starting to open up and I started seeing things that were not, and I kept hearing that word, RINO. And for years, I didn’t know what a RINO was. And I said, okay, you keep calling that person a RINO. why? What does that mean? That means, they go, well, that means Republican In Name Only. So what does that mean? In other words, there’s sometimes there were Democrats that wanted to get elected, but they’re running on a Republican platform. I said, then why are we electing them? And people give me that, what we used to call in the air for a SAC salute. I don’t know, you know, there’s nothing we could do. They had the money. And then I started seeing, okay, not just RINOs or Democrats that were running the Republican party. We started having socialists and globalists started running. And I said, you know, this is not the country that I served 20 years and my dad served 20 years to protect. If I don’t stand up, who will? So that was one of the main reasons that I started running for state office, because if you can fix the head, you can fix the rest of the state. So that is one of the main reasons that I’m in this race now, because I really don’t believe that the people who are supposedly representing the people of North Dakota have their best interests. And Fu Feng was one of those things. And you could see the Chinese have the major influence in our government. So me and myself, I said, you know what? I’m going to stand up and I’m going to fight for the people. I’m going to fight for the people who can’t fight. I’m going to stand for the people who can’t stand, and I’m going to speak for the people who cannot speak. So that’s what got me in this race, to run for the office of governor, because I believe we have one of the greatest states. And one of my, the saying is, my coachman for governor, the heart of the nation. We here in North Dakota can have a major influence on the rest of our nation by doing it right. And like I share with people, we may be a red state, but we’re Chinese red. I want it Republican red. I want it constitutional red, white, and blue. And that’s why I’m running.

Quallich: Now, you’ve run, as I mentioned, for office previously before you ran for Lieutenant Governor twice, Secretary of State and Governor back in 2020. Why do you think this year is gonna be it?

Coachman: Because I believe people are still starting to, just like as I started to see things, I believe a lot of other people are seeing the same thing as I saw. They started saying, hey, look, you know what? We are tired of what government is all about. Plus, my message is different than any other candidate. My whole platform is based on this, the Constitution, not just the U.S. Constitution, but the North Dakota Constitution, which means that the government should be smaller than before. I mentioned in those two other times as lieutenant governor, that wasn’t our platform. It was, hey, look, this is what we can do right. This is how we can change. And we, believe me, we still had a good traction on that. But as in most elections, and I’m not going to say this is as because I lost, you know, and I know, and most of the people know that the elections were not fair even back then, that we need to go to a paper ballot. And I’m praying that one way or another, we have a paper ballot. That’s gonna be the true testimony of where we’re at. Win or lose, if we have paper ballots, that’s gonna be an honest assessment of where we are and where we’re going. And with that, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s that we need to start doing some things right. So this year, I believe that even though we still may have the machines, I believe that some things are going to change and hopefully before November, and I’m hoping it starts at the federal level, that they say, hey, look, we’re going to automatically go on to paper ballots. If not, if I have to do this again, I will do it again because I still believe in standing up for the people. And I’m not going to lay down. I’m going to keep going until we win. And you know what? A lot of major battles are not won by the first time, you know. It’s the final battle. It’s how you finish is the key. And as me as an individual, I’ve been in martial arts since 1972. I lost some battles, but I kept on fighting, you know, I changed, I worked, I just got better at it. So if I win, I win. If I’m, then the people of North Dakota will have some major changes for the good for the state. If not, I would just have to brush my shoulders off and prepare for another round.

Quallich: All of that mentioned, Mr. Coachman is that some of the reasoning why you tried to get Governor Burgum and then Lieutenant Governor Sanford recalled back in 2021?

Coachman: Yes. There were some things that happened back then with him, with the COVID, a lot of different things that he was doing, I believe that it wasn’t the right steps for our state. But as you can see, I was not successful, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep trying as far as trying to help our government. That’s the key right now. That is something that happened. Now I’m moving forward and trying to fix our state by becoming an elected official.

Quallich: And you’re moving forward along with your running mate, Lydia Gessele. Why did you choose her as your running mate?

Coachman: Oh, she’s a tiger. She is someone that is very involved in local government, which is somebody I want. She has been to Bismarck’s testifying in front of the legislators dealing from home births to, hey, we can drink milk on our own if we want to, to a lot of different type of legislation. She’s even now fighting some of the school boards on how they’re doing things illegally. And so she’s a strong person. She has a strong faith in Christ. Somebody who I need is somebody that is going to just like me be accountable not just to we the people but to a higher power and that’s Jesus Christ who is our Lord and Savior and God Almighty and Not to some other foreign entity. So she is a good helper in this she is a great researcher and she has a love for the people and not only that for schools. She was a homeschooler. She helped fight for that homeschool bill. And she’s just a great complementary to me.

Quallich: Now we are taping this on Thursday, September 12th, which is still air as we interviewed and I discussed on Monday. But we’re talking on the day that the abortion ban, Judge Bruce Romanick ruled that down today. Your thoughts on that?

Coachman: You know, this is my belief as far as that. And, you know, we talk about, I think they misquote a lot of the constitution. Life begins at the moment of conception. Okay? So even though he said, no, it isn’t, it is. Life begins at the life of conception. And remember, I just mentioned that I believe in a higher power and that’s God and Jesus Christ. And if life begins at conception, anything after that is murder. So I believe that also even in the case of rape of the incest, okay, I believe that those individuals, those babies didn’t do nothing wrong. If they have to adopt them, it would make adoption a lot easier. But I don’t believe in taking a life unless the mother is in serious danger of dying. Otherwise than that, no, I don’t believe that we should have an abortion. And I know they say it’s the choice of the mother, but the baby has a choice and you’re taking that choice away from that baby. It’s another one of those innocent individuals who don’t have anybody that is representing them and stepping up for them to say, hey, look, I would like to live. Everybody has a right to live.

Quallich: And on your website you do say you are 100% right to life, correct?

Coachman: Correct, yes.

Quallich: And segueing into that, some of the other things I’d like to talk with you in the remaining time, we have about 15 minutes left, on your website one of the issues you want to talk about is looking at eliminating property tax using oil revenue for funding. Now, I’m curious, what sort of discussions have you had with oil representatives here in our state and what do they think about that plan?

Coachman: Well, it’s a matter of, again, going back to the Constitution. I know you can get into the deep weeds with conversations with a lot of people, because I will see the Chamber of Commerce and everybody’s having, hey, we don’t want to eliminate profit. But what does the Constitution state? And I’m going to read something. In Article 10, Section 1, the Legislative Assembly shall prohibit from raising revenue to defray the expense of the state through levying of a tax of the assessment value of real or personal property. It tells you right there in our Constitution, we cannot use property tax to fund, we shouldn’t, because that is it. Freedom is always associated with your land. And if you tax somebody and you could take their land, they’re neither free and they don’t own it. You could pay 20, 40, 80, 100 years, 200 years on your property and you go three years without paying property tax, they can take it. And that’s the problem. We’re taking something that is their God-given right. Freedom is always associated with land. By taking, by taxing property, you’re taking their freedom away. But on that, Burgum talked in October, I believe it was, how we have billions of billions of dollars. And I used, I go to the city on meet and greets and I ask, all these billions of dollars, has anybody received any benefit? Raise your hand. Did you know no one raises their hand? Least not in a group that I am, maybe in an elite status that they can raise their hand. But the people I have talked to, since I’ve been here since 1990, no one has received any really significant benefit from the billions of trillions of dollars we have in this state. We can use that. Not only that, with the elimination of property tax, people can know that they don’t have to make a choice between my medicine, do I have a home or food? Not only that, by eliminating the property tax, you’re going to encourage businesses to come to North Dakota. Why? I believe it was the, I was just talking about it this morning. Well, anyway, by businesses to come to North Dakota because they don’t have to worry about it. What happens when businesses come to North Dakota now? They say, okay, the city council or the county commissioners, give us five years, no property exempt. Then you do that after that, they’re gone. And who’s left holding the building and the excess taxes on that? The people. The people are left holding that. By eliminating property tax, you have people coming in, they can afford houses. Because right now, if you look at probably even your house, look at how much the property tax has gone up within the last couple of years. It’s making it tough. And what they usually say is, well, we need to fund school. What about the elderly? They’re caught between a fixed income and again, deciding, should I eat or medical care or will I have a house? That shouldn’t have to be when we have billions of dollars and it won’t hurt the state by eliminating property tax. We know that. So that’s my stand on property tax there, sir.

Quallich: Then you also say you want to eliminate government overreach for business owners, farmers, and ranchers. What do you define as overreach?

Coachman: Well, you got the EPA, ATF, all these different type of organizations that are federal. Those are type of things. I believe that most of the decisions should be left to the ranchers and farmers coming together, but not the federal government coming in and saying, hey, look, you need to do this here, or you can’t do this, and you can’t build on this easement. If it’s your land, you can do what you want. You know, you have like the CO2 pipeline coming in and they’re saying, look, we’re going to build on your property no matter what. No, it’s your property. What is the federal government coming through here? If it doesn’t benefit everybody within the state or within that community, it shouldn’t. There is a criteria of like eminent domain that need to be met. And right now, a lot of them are not being met they just lay them aside and taking over people’s land farmers or ranchers and Tell them hey look you have to like for instance, they’re talking about registering their cattle and Was it I think it was $50 a head that’s gonna break a lot of farmers a lot of ranchers excuse me and it’s just ridiculous. We need to just use what we have within the state, help what we can, the farmers and the ranchers and the other individuals, the business owners, to succeed by taking a lot of this excess burden off the business owners, ranchers, and farmers.

Quallich: You also say on your website that you want to drain the North Dakota swamp. Who’s in the swamp?

Coachman: Oh, people who are crooked. One of the things that I would do, first thing I would do as governor, is do an audit to find out where the money is. We know there’s crooked people in government. To assume that they’re not, you’re naive. I see that there’s a lot. People taking kickbacks. You look at where’s the money going? Why are they doing this? Why are they ruling and making decisions on things that I would say not ethical? So yes, if you want a more detail, you will see when I’m governor, because I’m not going to give detail on Holloman and Drain the Swamp, but I could tell you it’s where the money goes, that’s where you will see. But I already have a plan. We had a plan, I would say about four months already on Hollywood, Drain the Swamp in North Dakota.

Quallich: And then one last one I’d like to talk to you about, banning woke agendas. What woke agendas are there right now here in North Dakota?

Coachman: Well, when you think you’re a kitty cat or a dog and start using, I don’t know if you’re a male or female, I’m not going to support anything like that. I believe you’re a male, you’re a male, or you’re a female, you’re a female at birth. anything like that and anything that will support, I would say, I’m choosing words correctly here, things that are, should not be taught in school, especially any type of sex education, any type of thing like that in schools. I’m not going to support anything like that.

Quallich: And so how would you, because obviously that’s been one area of contention as far as this current administration where there were some laws put on the table and the governor vetoed them saying that there were already laws in place to kind of guide along that pathway. So do you have any sort of specifics as far as what you definitely don’t want to see, or perhaps you might have some wiggle room to talk with people about?

Coachman: I would say I think one of those things is that sex education should be taught at home I Don’t think the schools should be doing that. I think our main agenda is I’m going to say here in Article 8 of the education, a high degree of intelligence, patriotism, integrity, and moral on the part of every voter in a government of the people necessary to order to ensure a consistent of the government and prosperity and happiness of the people. That is the main thing, and it just goes into about how we should be educating our children, Other things that really are off topic, that is not helping the children. We need to just focus on schooling, the main thing, help the children in that manner.

Quallich: So, Mr. Coachman, between now and election day, what are your plans?

Coachman: I have gone to a, got a bunch of meet and greets. We have some things that are brewing here that hopefully we can discuss later on in another month or two that will, I think it’s going to be a major impact of the state. I think it’s going to show the swamp going to be revealed. I’m going to be doing as much meet and greet. So, I’m going to be going like this week to a potato bowl here in Grand Forks, letting people know that I am running for governor, that they do have a choice, somebody that will listen to them, the people. One of my goals as governor is to travel the state and listen to the people, because one of the most and valuable resource that we have in this state is people. And I don’t believe the government or the leaders in this state, not enough of them are taking the time to listen to the people and hear what they really have to say. I want to go through the state to foster a stronger esprit de corps, I would say, for the state. I’ve been traveling the state the last couple of years talking to people that don’t have hope. COVID really drained the people on a lot of different issues and their mindset and what they want to do. They really don’t have a lot of faith and hope in government. I want to reestablish that. And the only way to do that is to, again, drain the swamp. And I can’t do that alone. I need the people’s help. I need the people involved in their local government. I want them to be able to speak out at city council meetings or school boards and not know that they’re going to get shut down, that they’re going to have a governor that if they want to speak five, 10, 15 minutes, they can. Why? Because people need to speak. They need to be heard. I want their voices heard. I’m not going to give you a bunch of answer, political right answers to say, yeah, vote for me because of this. I’m going to tell you, everything that’s going to come across my desk is going to be based on the Constitution. Does it pass the mustard? Does it violate the Constitution or the U.S. Constitution or the North Dakota state Constitution? And does it help the people? If it doesn’t do that, no, I’m not going to support it because it’s the people. What most people don’t realize is that without this, these two books are the most important things that probably separate me than the other candidates, even other races, is that I still believe in this. This will fix 95 to 100% of the issues that we have in this state and correct the ones that were done because of this. Without these two books, we are nothing better than another third-world country. And that’s why people are coming here. It’s because of this. And this is what I want to establish.

Quallich: And with about less than a minute left, why should North Dakotans vote for you as their next governor?

Coachman: Most people don’t realize that they have a chain on their left leg and a chain on their right leg. One’s a blue, one’s red, but they’re still chained up. Mike Coachman’s gonna break the chains. It’s gonna let them free. Because without freedom, your chain, they may add another link to their chain to make you feel like you are progressing, but you’re still chained. And I’m going to break the chains of the tyranny that we have within our state.

Quallich: Okay. Well, Mr. Coachman, I thank you so much for your time. We have a couple of weeks away, so we will perhaps talk with you either before or after then. So again, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and all of our viewers. And thank you for watching the Voice of the People podcast here on kxnet.com. We’ll be back soon with more on the questions and answers affecting you, because remember, it’s your voice that matters: The Voice of the People.

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