Donald Trump weighed in on the furor surrounding Kristi Noem’s book in an interview Tuesday, praising the South Dakota governor as a “terrific person” who “got hit hard” over the memoir’s contents, which included the now infamous revelation that she executed her pet dog, Cricket, in a gravel pit.
“She had a bad week,” the former president told radio hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. “We all have bad weeks.”
Noem is thought to have significantly damaged her chances of being chosen as Trump’s 2024 running mate with the book, No Going Back, and the intense backlash it has received.
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As well as writing about killing Cricket—which she has consistently defended as an illustration of her ability to take tough decisions—Noem also wrote about botching a later execution of her pet goat, and she’s come under scrutiny for an anecdote about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un which the publisher says will be removed from new editions of the book.
Asked during the interview Tuesday if Noem is still “in the mix” as a possible VP, Trump said: “Well, until this week, she was doing incredibly well.”
“Sometimes you do books and you have some guy writing a book and you maybe don’t read it as carefully,” he continued. “You know, you have ghostwriters too. They help you, and they—in this case—didn’t help too much. Now she’s terrific. Look, she’s been a supporter of mine from day one.”
Trump nevertheless said she’s been the subject of a “couple of rough stories, there’s no question about it.” He noted that “people from different parts of the country probably feel a little bit differently” about “the dog story.”
“But that’s a tough story,” he said.
