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One of former president Donald Trump‘s top prospects for the vice presidency may have shot herself in the foot after she copped to killing of several animals on her family farm – an apparent misjudgment of public sentiment and misapplication of self-aggrandizement that prompted a political firestorm.
South Dakota governor Kristi Noem – widely believed to be in the top tier of Trump’s vice presidential aspirants – was hoping to bolster her chances via the publication of her latest book, No Going Back. The volume seeks to portray the two-term chief executive as a gritty, plainspoken problem-solver while giving the public an “unfiltered glimpse into how government actually works.”
“This book is packed with surprising stories and practical lessons from the front lines of the battle,” its promotional literature noted. “And she names names.”
One surprising name drop?
That of Cricket – an 14-month-old wirehair pointer. The unruly dog’s unfortunate fate was recalled by Noem as an example of her willingness to do things that are “difficult, messy and ugly.”
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According to Noem, Cricket was “untrainable,” had an “aggressive personality” and was “less than worthless as a hunting dog.”
“I hated that dog,” she wrote in an excerpt from her book first published by The (U.K.) Guardian.
Noem wrote that she was forced to euthanize Cricket following a pheasant hunt during which the animal “went out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life.” Cricket’s antics didn’t end after the hunt, though. The “trained assassin,” as Noem referred to the dog, subsequently killed multiple chickens belonging to one of Noem’s neighbors – and then “whipped around” and attempted to bite her owner.
“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”
And so Cricket was led to a gravel pit on Noem’s property – and shot.
“Hey, where’s Cricket?” one of Noem’s daughters asked her mother.
Check the gravel pit, kid …
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“It was not a pleasant job,” Noem wrote. “But it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”
Noem thereupon recalled a harsher fate which befell a nameless, un-castrated goat on her farm. This animal was “nasty and mean” and loved to chase her children – regularly knocking them to the ground. The animal also had a “disgusting, musky, rancid” odor, according to Noem.
Solution? Another trip to the gravel pit – although in this case the goat flinched as Noem fired her shotgun and was merely wounded, not killed. Rushing back to her truck to retrieve an additional shotgun shell, Noem returned and finished the job.
“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” Noem wrote in response to the ensuing hullabaloo. “Sadly, we just had to put down three horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”
Apoplexy unabated, Noem was compelled to address the scandal in more detail in a subsequent post – stating she “followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner and neighbor.”
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My issue with Noem is not so much her decision to euthanize two farm animals under her dominion – which, when you strip away the knee-jerk aghast-ness and post hoc politicized sensationalism, seems rational. Instead, my question is why the South Dakota governor (and former four-term congresswoman) – whose primary job on Trump’s ticket would be appealing to women in America’s middle class suburbs – thought this was a good story to share.
Were there no other farm stories showcasing her resolve and toughness that might have been more fitting?
Don’t get me wrong, I suspect the dust-up has duly aroused our featured columnist Prioleau Alexander – who, like most red-blooded American men, loves strong women – but Prioleau is not the target market here.
Noem, 52, has made headlines in the past for the wrong reasons. In the fall of 2021, rumors rekindled about an alleged affair between her and top Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski. The affair allegations were first raised by Pedro Gonzalez of the website American Greatness, who quoted anonymous sources as saying the “alleged fling” involving Noem and Lewandowski had reportedly “continued for months” and was an “open secret” among Trump intimates at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Noem denied the allegations.
“These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie,” she tweeted. “These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help. I love Bryon (Noem). I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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6 comments
99 times out of 100, blame the owner, not the dog.
This is a disgusting case of animal cruelty. This was a 14-month-old puppy and this is not 1850. There are Pointer Rescue organizations that operate nationwide, including one at pointerrescue.org. If she did not want this dog, rehoming would have taken one phone call. There would have been plenty of families who would have taken this dog in and given her a loving home. Anyone who could pull out a gun and blow away a playing puppy who trusts you completely would do that to anything or anyone. This innocent pup was murdered by the leader of its pack.
If you listen to her story it all starts to fall apart. She says it’s about making hard choices, but in this case, she says the dog embarrassed her at a hunt and she hated the dog. She enjoyed killing that dog so much that she went back to the house and took another animal out to the same place where she killed the dog and killed that animal as well. She enjoys killing. She would do the same thing to people if it would not land her in jail.
Animal cruelty is the first warning sign of a psychopath.
“She would do the same thing to people if it would not land her in jail.”
Who knows, maybe she’s looked for similar legal loopholes or justifications for it. Wonder what her google search history looks like.
She really has that Murdaugh vibe to her.
The wrong bitch came back from the gravel pit.
It’s pretty well-known that she’s angling to be Trump’s VP and this is all about her showing “Daddy” that she can kill things. Double-bonus score because it was a dog because he’s well-known to hate dogs. And here’s the other thing–she also admitted to shooting 3 horses who were “old”, my guess is that she was either too cheap to hire a Vet to put them down humanly or she’s a flat-out psychopath who enjoys killing things. And that is why these little stories made it into her book–sociopaths/psychopaths don’t know they aren’t normal. Doubling-down on it was a bad idea, but that too won’t be out of the norm for someone who is mentally, not all there. Is being mentally disturbed and cruel now a requirement to be elected to a state or national office for the GOP now? Oh, right, because they’re “Christians”.
My grandfather farmed about 25 acres to make some extra money to supplement his job at the steel plant. Up until the early 1960’s when he was able to buy a used tractor he did it all with a mule. After he got the tractor the mule continued to reside at the farm and had every need cared for. The mule died a peaceful and natural death around 1976/77. I asked my grandfather one time why he kept the mule once it no longer served a purpose on the farm. His response “that mule served me well and never let me down. We worked a lot of very hard long days together and the very least I could do was care for it and give it a good retirement”. There was nothing wrong with this dog and nothing noble about her decision to execute it. To me it shows a lack of character.