South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said former President Donald Trump could really use a female running mate, and claims she doesn’t care that she’s not on the shortlist — while adding that she’s been “loyal” to him.
“I’ve told President Trump over and over again, he needs to pick whoever helps him win,” Ms. Noem said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. “I have been loyal to him since the very beginning when he first started to run in 2016. He’s told me his priority is picking a running mate that can govern on Day 1, that has been loyal to him.
“I don’t care. I love my job in South Dakota. I care about the fact that I want him to win,” she said.
When asked if a woman should be on the ticket with Mr. Trump and if she could help him win, Ms. Noem said “that would be beneficial.”
“All the polls tell him in swing states that a woman on the ticket helps him win; the polls just say that,” she said.
“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.”
Ms. Noem at one point was considered to be on the presumptive Republican nominee’s shortlist for vice president, but some controversies seemingly got her booted. She came under fire in April after an excerpt from her book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” came out revealing that she shot her dog.
She defended herself once again on the Sunday show.
“That story’s the 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,” she said.
She said she has “learned a lot” from experiencing tough situations.
“I’ve learned that challenging times and hard decisions are hard. And that when you get into public office, you learn from every single one of them,” she said. “And you use that knowledge to go forward and to make wise decisions that are best for America.”
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.