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Gov. Kristi Noem didn't just brag about killing her 14-month-old puppy in her new book — she also threatened President Joe Biden's dog, Commander.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem isn't sorry for shooting and killing her 14-month-old puppy — in fact, she's threatening to kill another dog.
Noem revealed the disturbing incident in her upcoming book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward, in which she shot dead her dog Cricket, a wirehair pointer, after the puppy disrupted a hunt. Noem described the dog as having an “aggressive personality," and said that she killed many of a neighbor's chickens after the governor failed to control her, according to an advance copy of the book obtained by The Guardian.
Noem wrote that she hated Cricket after the incident, and “realized I had to put her down.” She then took the dog to a gravel pit and shot her to death, later doing the same to a “nasty and mean” male goat her family had owned.
Even after receiving bipartisan condemnation for her actions, the conservative did not relent or show remorse — instead, she suggested that President Joe Biden's dog Commander should meet the same fate.
“What would I do if I was president on the first day in office in 2025?" she wrote in her book's final passage, recently revealed by The Guardian. "The first thing I’d do is make sure Joe Biden’s dog was nowhere on the grounds. (‘Commander, say hello to Cricket for me.’)"
Noem defended the passages in a Sunday interview with CBS's Face the Nation, in which she stated: "Joe Biden’s dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. So how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog and what to do with it?”
Host Margaret Brennan noted that Commander no longer lives at the White House, then asked Noem if she was suggesting that Biden's dog should be shot. Noem only replied, “That what’s the president should be accountable to.”
Noem has also received criticism for lying in several parts of her book, including fabricating a meeting between herself and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, which The Dakota Scoutfirst discovered had probably never occurred. Her publisher, Center Street, has since said in a statement that parts of Noem's book will be redacted and reprinted to remove the falsehoods.
Still, Noem insisted in her interview: “I’m not retracting anything.”
