It’s a dispute that will likely fuel Donald Trump’s thinking. The Republican candidate should announce by the summer who will be his running mate for the presidential election next November.
“I knew I had to neutralize him”
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has so far been high among the regularly mentioned names. But that’s been at the heart of the confusion since Friday’s release Guardian excerpts from his memoirs No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward (“No Turning Back: The Truth About What’s Wrong in Politics and How We Move America Forward”) will be released on May 7.
Notably, she recounts killing her dog named Cricket, a wire-haired hound who was 14 months old at the time. “I hated that dog” with his “aggressive personality,” admits the Republican-elect, who wanted to train her pet to hunt pheasants. Kristi Noem says she tried bringing him in with older dogs to temper him, but to no avail. This one spoiled the hunting trip by attacking “all the birds”.
On the way back, Cricket escaped from the truck and attacked the residents’ chickens, who Kristi Noem had stopped to chat with, “grabbing them one by one and killing them with one blow of his fangs.” After writing a check to this family as reparations, South Dakota’s current governor decided to deem the dog “untrainable.” “I knew at that moment that I had to neutralize him,” she says. The elected Trumpist therefore took the dog to a quarry and shot it dead in front of a group of workers. “It wasn’t a pleasant job, but it had to be done.”
Proof of his character?
But Kristi Noem didn’t stop there. She says she also killed a goat belonging to the family at the same location on the same day, claiming the animal, which had not been neutered, had a “disgusting” odor and “liked to chase” children.
Why is the governor of Dakota talking about her misdeeds? “I think if I were a better politician I wouldn’t be telling this story,” she wrote. This episode it illustrates, she says, her strong will — in her personal life as well as in her political positions — even when there are “difficult, dirty and ugly” tasks to be done.
The revelation of his story caused outrage. Former Barack Obama adviser and now podcaster Tommy Vietor compared Trumpist-elect to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. “I really don’t understand how Kristi Noah is bragging about killing a 14 month old puppy and thinking it would make her look good. It’s more like Jeffrey Dahmer with dental veneers,” he wrote on X, referring to the governor’s dentures.
“Deliberately Cruel”
Republican activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer also opined that “you can’t shoot your dog and then become vice president.” “She killed the puppy because she was too lazy to train the hounds, not because it was a bad dog. This is intentionally cruel,” wrote Rick Wilson, a former member of the Republican Party.
On social networks, many dog lovers are outraged under the hashtag #KristiNoemIsAMonster (Kristi Noem is a monster). Animal rights groups also responded, with the Humane Society Legislative Fund recalling that 86 million American households “own at least one beloved pet and value their relationship with them.” “There are many effective and humane ways to treat behavioral problems in dogs without resorting to such means.” »
Declining popularity
The Democratic organization New River Strategies conducted its own poll and reported that “81 percent of Americans disapprove of Noah’s decision to shoot his dog.” Among Republican voters, 21% think Kristi Noem would be a good vice presidential candidate, 42% think the opposite, and 37% are unsure about the choice.
Politics, which published the poll, also notes that the South Dakota governor fell in the rankings of potential joint slates suggested by online betting company Predictit. Until now only ahead of South Carolina’s African-American Sen. Tim Scott, Kristi Noah is now in fourth place behind New York State Rep. Elise Štefánik and former Democrat-elect turned pro-Trump Tulsi Gabbard.
To calm the controversy, Kristi Noem posted several tweets saying she “loves animals.” He points out that South Dakota law allows dogs that attack livestock to be killed. “When you live on a farm, you have to make difficult decisions all the time,” she explains, before adding that she recently had to kill three horses that “had been part of the family for 25 years.”