DAILY TRIFECTA + 1: Just Say Noem
Remember kids ... don't do puppies!
TITLE: Gov. Kristi Noem's account of meeting North Korean dictator in doubt
https://www.thedakotascout.com/p/gov-kristi-noems-account-of-meeting
EXCERPT: In “No Going Back,” Noem says she met North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un while serving in Congress on the House Armed Services Committee. Last year as governor, she says she canceled a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron.
But neither account has been verified by congressional travel documents or outside sources reviewed by The Dakota Scout. And The Scout confirmed with the French president’s office that Macron never had a meeting scheduled with Noem.
The alleged meeting with Kim Jong Un is especially eye-raising to North Korea analysts and congressional staffers.
“It’s bullshit,” remarked a longtime, high-level Capitol Hill staffer who worked on the House Armed Services Committee during the period in which Noem says she met Kim. That staffer was among a dozen staffers interviewed by The Scout who said they had no knowledge of the meeting, or who said Noem had never mentioned it before.
In the book, scheduled to be released May 7, Noem doesn’t go into detail about the meeting with Kim.
“Through my tenure on the House Armed Services Committee,” she wrote, “I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders. I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all). Dealing with foreign leaders takes resolve, preparation and determination. My experiences on those many foreign trips made me a better member of Congress and a stronger governor. It allowed me to hone my deal-making skills, which play a crucial role in leadership.”
Noem served on the House Armed Services Committee from 2013-2015. During that period, committee members including Noem visited China in 2014. But there is no record of Kim being in China then. After assuming the role of supreme leader of North Korea in 2011, Kim did not leave North Korea until 2018, says University of Notre Dame professor and North Korea expert George Lopez.
That timeline, along with Kim’s preference to operate through proxies, makes Noem’s account nearly impossible, Lopez said.
“I don’t see any conceivable way that a single junior member of Congress without explicit escort from the U.S. State Department and military would be meeting with a leader from North Korea,” said Lopez, an expert and published author on the country. “What would have been so critical in his bag of tricks that he would have met with an American lawmaker, this one distinctively?”
He noted that not even President Barack Obama had met with the dictator.
Following the China trip, Noem joined her congressional colleagues in documenting their experiences and meetings.
“Having just returned from this critical region, we heard directly from senior U.S. military commanders, along with key leaders in Japan and South Korea, about the desire for bolstering alliances that have been the cornerstone of stability in Asia,” they wrote in a column published by CNN. “We also met senior Chinese officials in Beijing and U.S. business leaders in Shanghai about potential opportunities and challenges accompanying China’s dramatic rise.”
Nowhere did they mention meeting Kim, or leaders from North Korea.
TITLE: Noem book dogged by new claims of inaccuracies
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/kristi-noem-book-excerpt-nikki-haley-dog-00155925
EXCERPT: Noem’s spokesperson, Ian Fury, seemed to concede that the Kim story was false Thursday night: “We’ve been made aware that the publisher will be addressing conflated world leaders’ names in the book before it is released.”
That’s not the only story in the memoir raising questions about its validity. Playbook obtained an excerpt from the Noem book that includes an unusual allegation about Haley — one that the former 2024 hopeful plainly denies.
The way Noem tells the story, in the summer of 2021 she “was hauling a trailer full of horses” when she got word that Haley wanted to talk.
Here’s how Noem recounts the conversation:
“‘Hi, Governor, this is Ambassador Nikki Haley, and I just wanted to introduce myself and have a conversation. I just wanted to let you know that I follow you quite a bit. I have heard quite a bit about you, and you are doing a good job there in South Dakota. I was thinking that maybe you might like a mentor, and maybe I could be someone who could do that for you. Because you’re a governor, you’ve gone through some challenging things that I did as well. I would be more than willing to be a mentor, because you’ve never been in this type of role before.’
“She went on to tell me about her life story, her résumé, and some of the challenges she faced in her legislature as governor and as ambassador to the United Nations reading daily talking points from the State Department. Once again, I recall, she offered to mentor me, as she was sure I was facing some decisions and situations I’d never seen before. …
“After what seemed to me a bit of an awkward pause, she added, ‘I … just … also want you to know one more thing … I’ve heard a lot of really good things about you. But I also want you to know that if I hear something bad … I will be sure to let you know.’
“There was a long pause.
“‘Um, well, thanks for that, Ambassador.’
“‘Let me be clear,’ she added. ‘I’ve heard many good things about you. But when I do hear bad things, I will make sure that you know. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. We will visit soon. Goodbye.’ Click.”
Was that a threat? Here’s where things get strange. After she “took a few minutes to process the experience,” Noem called her assistant. She recounts their conversation:
“‘I think I was just threatened by Nikki Haley?’
“‘What?!’
“‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure I was just threatened by Nikki Haley. It was clear that she wanted me to know that there was only room for one Republican woman in the spotlight. It was weird.’
“Unsurprisingly, I never received any calls or ‘mentoring’ from her, but the message was clear. I’m the alpha female here, and you should know your place. I actually felt a little sad for her.”
Contacted for comment, Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton was befuddled. She said the two women did talk, but — looking back at Haley’s calendar — found that it was in 2020, not 2021.
“Nikki has long called and written notes supporting other women when they go through challenging times,” Denton said. “She called Governor Noem in 2020 to encourage her when she was criticized for keeping her state open during Covid. How she would twist that into a threat is just plain weird.”
Finally, there is one other criticism that Noem levels against Haley, whom she calls a “lone wolf,” that is worth highlighting: Their very different responses to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
“The day after January 6, 2021, I did have a brief conversation with Nikki at the RNC meeting,” Noem writes. “In my speech I talked about the importance of continuing to support Donald J. Trump, regardless of the fact that what unfolded on January 6 was undeniably ugly. She used the podium to criticize and distance herself from the former president.”
TITLE: Jeffco GOP cancels Kristi Noem event amid dog-killing controversy
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/next-with-kyle-clark/kristi-noem-colorado-gop-event-canceled/73-8b7b16f9-ddac-4dbc-8195-f81ec4bb2eab
EXCERPT: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R) will not speak as planned in Golden this week after the national outrage over her killing of a puppy created “safety concerns,” according to event organizers.
Noem was scheduled to headline a fundraiser for the Jefferson County Republicans on Saturday. Early Friday morning, the group posted on social media that the event at the Denver West Marriott was canceled.
“In the past few days, numerous threats and/or death threats have been made to our organization, the hotel, and to the Governor and her staff,” a Jeffco Republicans Facebook post read in part. “The Denver West Marriott also received alarming comments and shared with us their deep concern over the safety and security for those attending our event, other guests, and their staff.”
Noem is facing nationwide, bipartisan condemnation for her new book’s claim that killing an unruly puppy was a sign of her leadership ability.
Jeffco Republicans initially embraced the controversy as a means to sell tickets to their fundraising, saying that Noem “will share her perspective on the animal killings” at the dinner event, adding “Don’t miss out.”
TITLE: Noem’s dog killing was bad, but to really understand her, consider the goat
https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/05/02/noems-dog-killing-was-bad-but-consider-the-goat/
EXCERPT: After Noem made the death march to her farm’s gravel pit, where she shot Cricket, she was apparently still in an uncontrollable rage.
“Walking back up to the yard, I spotted our billy goat,” Noem wrote.
The nameless goat’s only sin in that moment was being in Noem’s field of view.
In the book, Noem tried to justify her snap decision to kill the goat by writing that it “loved to chase” her children and would “knock them down and butt them,” leaving them “terrified.” The animal also had a “wretched smell.”
But apparently none of that had been a big enough problem to do anything about it. Not until Noem got angry enough to kill a dog and decided she needed to kill again.
Noem says she “dragged” the goat to the gravel pit, “tied him to a post,” and shot at him. But the goat jumped when she shot.
“My shot was off and I needed one more shell to finish the job,” she wrote.
She studiously avoided saying she wounded the goat with the first shot, but that’s the implication.
“Not wanting him to suffer,” she added — apparently experiencing her first twinge of feeling, after saying that killing the dog was not “pleasant” — “I hustled back across the pasture to the pickup, grabbed another shell, hurried back to the gravel pit, and put him down.”
The goat story not only reflects a disturbing lack of self-control, but also raises a question of law.
Noem has defended her shooting of [Cricket], citing legal justification for her actions. She’s likely referencing a state law that exempts from the definition of animal cruelty “any reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property.”
Cricket killed a neighbor’s chickens and “whipped around to bite” Noem when she intervened; therefore, by Noem’s logic, her killing of Cricket was legally defensible. She’s probably right, legally speaking.
But what about the goat?
Sure, it chased children, butted them, and smelled bad. “So, a goat,” Stephen Colbert deadpanned during his Monday monologue on “The Late Show,” speaking for everybody who’s ever been around goats. If those traits meet the legal definition of “dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property,” killing any goat would always be legally justified.
In reality, what Noem did to the goat — dragging it to a gravel pit, tying it to a post, shooting at it once, leaving to get another shell, and shooting it again — sounds an awful lot like the legal definition of animal cruelty. That definition in South Dakota law is “to intentionally, willfully, and maliciously inflict gross physical abuse on an animal that causes prolonged pain, that causes serious physical injury, or that results in the death of the animal.”
Alas, cruelty to animals is a Class 6 felony, and lower-class felonies like that carry a seven-year statute of limitations in South Dakota. We don’t know exactly what year it was when Noem shot her dog and goat. She gave a clue in the book when she wrote that her children came home on the school bus the day of the killings and one of them asked, “Where’s Cricket?” Noem didn’t say how she responded, and all of her children are now grown.
If that was more than seven years ago, the goat killing is probably not prosecutable. But no prosecution could do more damage to Noem’s reputation and career than she’s already done to herself by writing about her animal bloodthirst.
As Noem wrapped up her bloody tale in the book, she wrote that being a leader is often “messy” and “ugly.”
In her case, it certainly is.