The disastrous press tour executed by Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) ostensibly to promote her new memoir — but as everyone knows, it really acts as the South Dakota governor’s audition to become former President Donald Trump‘s running mate — can only be described as suicidal. And that might be intentional.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has reportedly been considering Noem for his vice presidential pick, alongside a short list that includes Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and J.D. Vance (R-OH), Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND). That is until Noem decided to dish gleefully on executing her “less than worthless” 14-month-old puppy Cricket in her memoir and then proceeded to stand firm on killing her canine on national television.
“The reason it’s in the book is because this book is filled with tough, challenging decisions that I had to make throughout my life,” Noem said on television, although the memoir’s jovial tone makes clear she didn’t consider gunning down the pup a “tough” decision at all.
Noem also inexplicably claimed in the memoir she had met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, equating him to the “little tyrants” she had previously “star[ed] down” as “a children’s pastor.” When asked by CBS’s Margaret Brennan point blank whether she had ever actually met the fratricidal dictator, Noem refused to answer.
“I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders. I’m just not going to do that,” Noem said. “This anecdote shouldn’t have been in the book. And as soon as it was brought to my attention, I made sure that that was adjusted.”
While the popular explanation of Noem’s bleak book tour is that she was too lazy to read the manuscript actually authored by a ghostwriter, Noem narrated the audiobook. Presumably, she heard herself claim to meet one of the most infamous men in the world, one whose every encounter is globally surveilled and reported on, rendering a claim such as Noem’s easily falsifiable.
Trump is reportedly “disgusted” by the fallout, which may very well be the point if, as it appears, Noem doesn’t want to win Trump’s nomination.
Although Noem has a fixed, term-limited retirement deadline at the start of 2027, she presumably wants some sort of future in the GOP, and that means she cannot possibly turn Trump down if he actually asks her to join the 2024 ticket. Without a compelling reason, Noem would be relegated to Trump’s Truth Social feed as a MAGAvatar of disloyalty and disdain to the movement. Noem could avoid such a fate by waiting out her term far away from Washington and then either joining Trump’s administration as a lower-profile appointment or trying to replace Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), who will be well into his 70s, as he is due reelection right when Noem departs the governor’s mansion.
The reason for not wanting to win the “veepstakes” is obvious. We all saw how Trump rewarded Mike Pence for four straight years of unyielding loyalty when the vice president followed through on his legal and constitutional mandate to certify the 2020 election: When a violent mob, including those chanting they would “hang Mike Pence,” stormed the Capitol and forced Pence and his family to hide for their lives, Trump did nothing. He refused to call off rioters threatening to murder his most loyal consigliere.
One can recognize the national security and economic threat posed by a second presidential term for Joe Biden and support Trump’s reelection more generally without personally wanting to sign up as his second-in-command. Not to mention that anyone, especially a Republican woman, tapped by Trump will be torn to shreds by a global gang of Democratic opposition researchers and corporate press (not that these really differ in practice).
When Noem made the baffling decision to cut a social media promotion for veneers she scored from a Texas dental practice, she committed much worse than the “undisclosed advertisement” corruption she was accused of. Rather, as an attractive woman in politics held to a persistently different standard by the public, Noem committed the fatal political error of revealing that, indeed, sometimes, attractive women have an assist in the form of cosmetic enhancements. Noem, who has been an attractive woman in politics for nearly two decades, from the state House to the People’s House to Pierre, likely did not do this by accident but rather to take her further out of the running for running mate.
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None of this is to mention the persistent but unproven reports that the married Noem had an affair with professional mess Corey Lewandowski, and while the moral majority may now be fine with electing men who have repeatedly committed adultery, the electorate may not be ready to degrade women to the same standards.
The only other alternative here is that Noem, who managed to make it to Congress without a bachelor’s degree and the White House short list from the fifth smallest state in the union, is actually a moron. In which case, we’re all screwed, perhaps as badly as poor Cricket.