Under normal circumstances, Fox News would be the safest space for Kristi Noem to rehab her image. But the embattled governor’s disastrous, neverending puppy-killer book tour is no ordinary situation.
On the same day as her combative interview on Fox’s sister network, the South Dakota governor bailed on sitting down with Fox News host Greg Gutfeld because of bad weather. In turn, the primetime star brutally roasted her.
A source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast that the governor’s team specifically cited a snowstorm in her home state of South Dakota. While there was a winter weather advisory in the Black Hills, Noem was physically in New York City, having already appeared in-studio on Fox Business and Newsmax earlier in the day. Furthermore, the South Dakota capital of Pierre enjoyed temperatures in the 50s on both Tuesday and Wednesday. A representative for Noem did not respond to a request for comment.
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Additionally, CNN anchor Dana Bash revealed on Wednesday afternoon that Noem had “abruptly canceled” an interview that was scheduled for that day’s broadcast of Inside Politics, even though the governor’s team had reconfirmed the appearance earlier in the week. “We want to say that, governor, you are of course welcome on the program anytime,” Bash added.
Gutfeld pulled no punches when delivering the news of Noem’s cancellation to his viewers, skewering her with a brutal series of dog-related barbs about her latest book, No Going Back, in which she reveals that she executed a 14-month-old puppy that she “hated.”
At the top of his show, Gutfeld snarked that Noem’s staff “blamed bad weather” for her bailing, turning to “locals for reaction,” which was a video of dogs barking and swimming in a pool.
“Who knows why she canceled? When we asked how her week was going, she replied ‘ruff.’ Maybe it wasn't bad weather, I heard it was raining cats and dogs,” Gutfeld quipped. “I tried to convince Noem to stay and do our show. I even told her my dog Gus had all his shots. She said not yet he hasn’t.”
After a few more cracks, Gutfeld suggested Noem would have ultimately benefited from appearing on his show.
“You know, you could’ve done the show. Could have done the show,” he said. “We are nice people. Everybody here teases everybody else. We have a good time. You probably would come off looking a lot better than you do now because we would have had fun, but instead, you chose to run. Boo!”
Towards the end of the broadcast, Gutfeld turned to Fox News vet Dana Perino, a well-known dog lover, to portray Noem in a skit once again roasting the governor’s calamitous book and her cringeworthy efforts to defend herself.
“So, Dana, aka Gov. Noem, did you write the book yourself?” Gutfeld wondered.
“You know, that’s a great question for someone who wrote the book, and I don’t think I will dignify your question with a response,” Perino retorted. “There are so many other important issues in the world, like animal cruelty.”
Perino continued to mock Noem’s evasive responses to journalists’ questions about the book’s claims, especially when Gutfeld asked if the governor had actually read her own memoir.
“Thank you for reading my book. I said some words that were written about me, and they were in a certain order of—they call them sentences, and so I read those aloud,” she quipped. “I don’t know if that means I read the book, though.”
Keeping the dog jokes flowing, Perino also claimed that she had recently gotten another puppy named “Ghost Writer” but that she had “killed him this morning.”
“I also regret not canceling on you on Saturday, so I didn’t waste your time reading a book that I was not going to come on and do the interview about,” Perino said, still pantomiming Noem.
“Amen,” Gutfeld replied.
Since it was first leaked last week that No Going Back contained a story about Noem shooting a dog in a gravel pit because he was “untrainable,” the Republican governor has engaged in a desperate (and thus far catastrophic) media tour to defend herself and try to salvage a potential spot as Donald Trump’s running mate.
Noem has only come under more fire, though, after it was revealed that she claimed in the book that she met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Experts have cast doubt that the meeting ever took place, and Noem has since blamed her ghostwriter for the anecdote and said it shouldn’t have been included in the book. At the same time, she has also refused to clarify or confirm whether or not she ever did speak with the reclusive authoritarian.
Prior to her scheduled appearance on Gutfeld!, which would have included her sitting on a panel for an entire hour, Noem appeared Tuesday on the Fox Business Network with host Stuart Varney, at one point demanding he stop asking questions about the dog story. She also sat down for a tense Newsmax interview in which her hosts told her she’s not even “on the list” to be Trump’s veep.
