She might have been a candidate too. But then she wrote her book. And suddenly Kristi Noem was caught in her headlights like a bunny, or maybe a naughty puppy.
The governor of South Dakota has been made aware of a false claim he claims he met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that accidentally appeared in his book. NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas said, “You recorded the entire audiobook version and read this passage aloud.” Why didn’t you put it out then?
Nomu blinked, nodded, confused. She was pressed on the point twice more. she finally asked desperately. “Is there anything else you would like to talk about today?”
It was a car crash interview conducted at the end of train crash week. Noem then abruptly canceled appearances on CNN and Fox News, absolving herself of further slander over Kim’s lies and admission that she once shot and killed a misbehaving puppy in a gravel pit.
Branded a fantasist and a dog killer, her hopes of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election were dashed. Noem is the latest in a string of politicians to commit the spectacular act of self-immolation, from Gary Hart’s infidelity to Sarah Palin’s gaffe to Mark Sanford’s cover-up.
“She’s in the temple right now,” said Rick Wilson, a strategist who has worked on many Republican campaigns. “The arrogance of many political candidates who think they are doing well with the press is that they are skating on thinner and thinner ice, and when that ice peels away they find themselves trapped beneath them. You’re doing well with the press until you realize what’s going on.”Wed. “
Kristi Noem’s rise and fall happened at dizzying speed. The rancher and farmer served for years in the South Dakota state legislature before she entered Congress in 2010 with the right-wing populist Tea Party wave. She became South Dakota’s first female governor in 2019, winning praise from Republicans for her resistance to coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.
In 2022, Noem published a book, Not My First Rodeo. The cover depicts her wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse, holding the reins in one hand and a giant American flag in the other. “From humorous barnyard grass fights with energetic cows and rodeo horses…” was part of her PR pitch. The book seemed to strengthen her position as a serious player in the world of “Make America Great Again (Maga).”
There were concerns over Noem’s hard-line stance on abortion and reports of an affair with former President Trump aide Corey Lewandowski. But in February, when the Conservative Political Action Conference conducted a straw poll for Trump’s running mate, she tied for first place among 17 candidates with Vivek Ramaswamy. .
But things started to unravel when Noem appeared in a bizarre infomercial-like video lavishing praise on a team of cosmetic dentists in Texas. Then she read too many of her books. In No Going Back, first reported by the Guardian, she takes her 14-month-old wire-haired pointer, Cricket, to an older dog in hopes of calming the feral pup. He writes that he took him bird hunting with him.
Instead, Cricket chased a pheasant, attacked the family’s chickens as they stopped on the way home, and then “bitten me with a whip,” she recalled. She then takes Cricket to a gravel pit and kills him. As a precaution, she added, her family’s goat was also shot and killed, saying it was mean and liked to chase children.
President Trump once famously declared that he would not lose voters if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York, but shooting dogs is the last taboo in American politics, and Democrats and Republicans have come together to It soon became clear that this was the only blasphemous act that could be condemned. Otherwise, it will be a very partisan time.
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign posted on social media photograph A photo of the president walking on the White House lawn with one of his three German shepherds.Democrat Hillary Clinton Reposted In a 2021 comment, she warned, “Don’t vote for people who don’t trust dogs.” She added now, “I still am.”
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the website Politico, “Killing the dog and writing about it cost her any chance of being elected vice president.” Laura Loomer, a far-right extremist and Trump believer, posted on X: There’s no coming back from here. This is so heartless. Did she kill the puppy? As a dog lover, that’s just too much. ”
What was she thinking? The story that Noem killed the dog “in a fit of anger” has been circulating among state politicians for years, and there were witnesses, so he may now go public as he is being scrutinized as a running mate. Some people speculated.
Some were convinced that praising “murderers” and trying to curry favor with President Trump, who doesn’t love dogs, was a misguided attempt. Wilson, co-founder of the anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project, said: “Writing about killing dogs wasn’t about killing dogs for her.
“Corey Lewandowski or someone around her told her that she was tough and mean and bad and that she could do difficult things and that she could never be like Mike Pence. OK, we have to show Trump that we can count on him.” Whatever the order was, it required President Trump to be as brutal and ugly as necessary. ”
He added: “Is that why she wrote it in a way that said, “It’s okay for me to kill a puppy, but isn’t that good enough for you, Donald?” But even Donald Trump, who hates dogs, hates bad PR even more. Kristi Noem has become the definition of bad PR. ”
Then a disastrous book tour began. Noem gave an interview to CBS, NewsNation, Newsmax and Fox Business in which Stuart Varney, who is usually friendly to Maga, pressed her about her dog, and she said, This interview is ridiculous – what you’re doing now. That’s why you should stop. ”
Wilson commented: “On the third or fourth day after she has been publicly humiliated over and over again, someone will put her out of her misery and take her to a gravel road to end this suffering. I even felt like I should. It was just fluctuating from moment to moment, and there was no sense of clarity..
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“When you’re on a PR tour trying to appeal to the MAGA constituency, there’s this belief in the MAGA world of never apologizing, never saying you were wrong, never backing down. But unfortunately, humans That’s not the case. Even in the MAGA media space, she started to worry about it, and that’s no surprise. She deserved it.”
Noem took particular offense to a passage in her book in which she said she remembered meeting Kim. “I’m sure he underestimated me, because he had no clue about my experience watching little tyrants (I was a children’s pastor, after all).” She later admitted that no such encounter occurred, and she promised to correct her later editions.
“As a Republican woman, she wanted to project a tough image and that’s why she’s running for vice president,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. It’s not actually a dog. The gift is Kim Jong-un. That could happen to any foreign leader.
“Why would she choose to lie about meeting Kim Jong Un? Because she remembered the ‘romantic relationship’ between Trump and Kim Jong Un and thought Trump would be especially impressed if she met and spoke with him. That’s what they have in common — except they don’t.”
Noem is not the first American politician to hit the self-destruct button.
Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butts said this on a plane after the 1976 Republican National Convention. That’s his three. First of all, it’s a tight pussy. Second, loose shoes. And third, it’s a warm place to shit. ” The remark was reported in the media and led to a reprimand from then-President Gerald Ford and the resignation of Mr. Butts, who claimed that “my use of gross racial language in no way reflects my actual attitude.” there was.
Sen. Gary Hart, a front-runner for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination, told reporters: I do not care. I’m serious. If anyone wants to add a tail to me, go ahead. They will be very bored. The Miami Herald kept a close eye on Hart, who was married, and reported that she spent the night with a young model named Donna Rice. He withdrew from the race.
John Edwards, a young and charismatic star of the Democratic Party, ran for president in 2008 while having an affair and fathering a child with a woman, even as his wife was battling cancer. The scandal was exposed and his political career was ruined.
Republican Sarah Palin was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 election, but came under fire for gaffes that revealed her lack of foreign policy experience or knowledge of the Supreme Court. When asked what newspapers and magazines he usually reads, Palin replied: “Well, everything. It’s been in front of me for years.”
In 2009, when Mark Sanford was governor of South Carolina, he flew to Argentina with a woman who was not his wife, but the woman told staff she was hiking the Appalachian Trail. The deception was quickly uncovered, making headlines and ending his 20-year marriage.
Mr Sanford told the Guardian this week: This record speaks for itself in that I was honest, laid my cards out on the table, dealt with things as they happened, and did the best I could in those situations.
“If a person who has publicly failed at something has learned anything from it, it has been that he has learned to live up to the Biblical command of not judging others. Just recognize that you are perfect. Those who pretend to be the most perfect are not and will inevitably end up living in glass houses.”
But Sanford said he was perplexed that Trump, who faces 88 charges in four criminal cases, appears to have gotten a free pass and become the Republican presidential nominee again. Admitted. “The higher you climb, the more you fall. And frankly, there’s a magnifying glass that’s applied to people in public office that should be there.
“People shouldn’t get away with being above the law and doing things that others won’t do. Public life comes with an additional level of scrutiny. This has nothing to do with the fact that we live in this country. There may be 330 million people, and surprisingly, [Trump and Biden] They are two of the best this country has to offer on the Republican and Democratic sides. are you kidding me”
Other politicians who lost office due to fatal flaws include Andrew Gillum, Eliot Spitzer, and Anthony Weiner. Some of them seem destined to fly too close to the sun. Sabato commented: “They want everything and are used to being very lucky. They believe that they will continue to be lucky. That’s fatal for everyone. But don’t expect good luck to happen every day.
