Now she’s reportedly no longer being considered for Donald Trump’s vice-presidential slot, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem had no problem on Sunday defending her decision to kill—and then write about—her 14-month-old puppy Cricket.
CNN’s Dana Bash raised the Politico report that named the candidates asked to submit vetting materials to Trump—a list Noem wasn’t on.
She later cited the Cricket episode, asking if the governor had any regrets for any element of it—whether including it in her book or the killing itself.
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“That story is a 20-year-old story of a mom who made a very difficult decision to protect her children from a vicious animal that was attacking livestock and killing livestock and attacking people,” Noem told the State of the Union host.
In her book, No Going Back, Noem wrote that Cricket ruined a pheasant shoot, killed a neighbor's chickens, and tried to bite Noem herself before she killed the dog she “hated.”
She also wrote about killing a goat she deemed too aggressive, dumping its body in the same gravel pit as Cricket.
“So it’s in the book because it was difficult for me,” Noem said, “and there’s a lot in that book that I think people need to read.”
She then tried to claim the book was full of hard decisions she made, which is what influenced her to think Trump deserved to return to the White House, but Bash saw through the lines.
“So what I’m hearing is no regrets, not just about writing about it, but actually shooting the dog,” Bash said.
Noem tried to counter with a May incident of a 9-year-old boy getting killed by a dog—neglecting to mention that the boy was killed by a pack of feral dogs, not a puppy owned by a family with the resources to train it—before launching into a tirade about why she believed President Joe Biden was detrimental to the country.
“People are put in tough situations in life, and we learn from it,” Noem said. “We learn a lot from it.”
Despite reporting indicating Noem is no longer a contender to be Trump's proposed VP, Bash asked if she had “any indication that you're still under consideration to be Donald Trump's running mate?”
Noem did not disavow the idea. She had “told President Trump over and over again he needs to pick whoever helps him win,” she said, stressing her loyalty since “the very beginning, when he first started to run in 2016.”
“So I talked to him three times yesterday,” Noem added. “I think he's doing great and fantastic. I'm proud of him. I have never seen anybody get out of bed and work as hard as this guy does just because he loves America.”
Bash asked if Noem thought Trump needed a woman on his ticket, and whether such a woman might be her.
Noem said: “Well, all the polls tell him in these swing states that a woman on the ticket helps him win. The polls just say that. People, one in four Republican women haven't made up their minds because they want to have a woman talking to them about the issues they care about.
“And women aren't monolithic. They don't care about just one issue. They care about health care. They care about their children. They care about their futures. They care about having an opportunity to have a business and to have a career.”
Noem switched to attacking President Joe Biden. Bash brought her back to the point: should Trump pick a woman as his potential VP?
“I think that that would be beneficial,” Noem said, “according to the polling that I have seen for him in a lot of swing states … having a woman that is helping him campaign makes a difference.
“Listen, I could be home in bed or feeding my horses right now or rocking my grandbabies. But I'm in Wisconsin [a battleground state] because I believe President Trump needs to win.”
Noem's reference to her horses evoked the controversy over her account of killing Cricket.
Shortly after that story broke, in late April, the governor said: “We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”
Photos of the horses, shared weeks before, showed one standing in a freshly dug pit.
