Kristi Noem
Kristi Noem (Photo: Gage Skidmore, via CC BY-SA 2.0)

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been doing the media rounds this week to promote the publication of her new memoir. Noem clearly thinks she still has a shot to be Donald Trump’s Vice President pick, despite the controversy surrounding her book.

First, there was the passage in which she talks about shooting her 14-month-old puppy, Cricket, in the head. She said she “hated” the dog and it was untrainable and aggressive.

Then it emerged that the book includes a claim she met North Korea’s Kim Jung Un. Noem said that Un, looking into her eyes, knew she was not someone to be messed around with.

The only problem with this is there’s no record of Noem ever meeting the North Korean dictator.

She and her publisher have all now confirmed the passage is being yanked from future editions. Noem says it was a “mistake” to include it.

When questioned in interviews, she refuses to admit the meeting didn’t take place. She merely says it was a mistake to include it and she pulled it when that part was brought to her attention.

However, on Monday, reporter Elizabeth Vargas pulled the rug from under Noem when she challenged her on the whole “when it was brought to my attention” claim. Vargas reminded Noem that she had narrated the audiobook version of the memoir.

So why didn’t she pull it then?

Noem doesn’t answer Vargas directly, She instead repeats her stock answer about traveling and meeting world leaders for the past 30 years. She then says she won’t discuss her meetings with individual leaders.

Vargas says asking Noem about recording her audiobook.

“Do you want to talk about something else today?” responds Noem, clearly out of answers.

The internet reacts to Noem dodging questions

Noem’s performance left people unimpressed.

Shooting the dog and goat

Noem may regret her audiobook for other reasons. After the memoir’s release yesterday, snippets are now popping up online. Here she is talking about the dog and goat killing incident. She dragged both animals to a gravel pit and shot them while a “startled construction crew” stood nearby. The workers were building her house.

Her first shot didn’t kill the goat immediately and she had to return to her car to reload her gun.

Noem recalls a phone call from her uncle, a contractor leading the construction crew, demanding to know what the shots they heard were all about.

Noem sounds blasé about the whole animal murdering spree. Listeners were shocked.

Vice President dreams go up in smoke

Noem has not enjoyed an easy ride on news channels, even those regarded as right-leaning. On Newsmax this week, co-host Rob Finnerty told her to her face, “If you asked me a month ago who’s at the top of the list to run with Donald Trump, I would’ve said your name. If you asked me that same question this morning, I don’t even think you’re on the list.”

Noem, shocked, replies, “Really? And why is that?”

“It’s because of things that came out in this book, like your claims that you met Kim Jong Un,” says Finnerty.

Noem’s book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, hit stores yesterday. It immediately started to attract one-star reviews on Amazon. So much so, that Amazon quickly began to remove reviews, citing “unusual reviewing activity.”

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