The political-literary fiasco of Kristi Noem’s memoirs

By launching this Tuesday No Going Back, her second memoir since 2022, Kristi Noem, Republican governor of South Dakota and potential running mate of Donald Trump, takes a well-trodden path. As an ambitious politician, she wants to take advantage of the book’s release to raise her profile on a national scale. However, judging by her first interviews, which follow a murderous uproar over a bloody passage in the book, she is in very bad shape. Preliminary assessment of a political-literary fiasco.

Dog killer

No Going Back accomplished the rare feat of provoking bipartisan revulsion after publication in the Guardian from a passage concerning Cricket, a 14-month-old dog. Kristi Noem recounts having shot the wirehaired pointer with a bullet because of his unsuitability for pheasant hunting and his aggressive behavior. According to the governor, the anecdote illustrates her ability to take on thankless tasks herself. Several Americans, from all parties, have instead concluded that there was a lack of judgment and heart. Never mind: Kristi Noem did it again on Sunday by suggesting that Commander, Joe Biden’s German shepherd, deserved the same fate as Cricket. “Joe Biden’s dog attacked 24 members of the Secret Service. How many people do you have to dangerously attack and injure before making a decision about a dog? “, she said on CBS.

Large-scale manufacturer?

If Kristi Noem will remain a dog killer in the eyes of some Americans, she will perhaps also become a large-scale fabricator for others, a sort of George Santos of the Great Plains. In the wake of GuardianTHE Dakota Scouta Sioux Falls newspaper, unearthed another striking passage from No Going Back. The governor discusses her “meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un” during her time in the House of Representatives. “I’m sure he underestimated me, having no idea of ​​my experience in fighting petty bullies (I had been a children’s pastor, after all),” one can read in his memories. Elsewhere in the book, we learn that Kristi Noem canceled a meeting in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron at the last minute because of “a very pro-Hamas and anti-Israeli comment to the press.”

The “mistakes” of a penholder

According to Dakota Scout, the Élysée denies that a meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Kristi Noem was on the president’s agenda. What about the meeting with Kim Jong-un? A spokesperson for the South Dakota governor said it was one of “two small errors” that crept into No Going Back. “This information was communicated to the editor and the publisher. Kim Jong-un was included in a list of world leaders and should not have been,” he said. Kristi Noem remains vague on the issue. “I met with several foreign leaders,” she said on CBS on Sunday. “I will not talk about my specific meetings with world leaders. This anecdote should not have been in the book,” she added, giving the impression that the subject was a state secret. Kristi Noem visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

The “threat” of Nikki Haley

And what about the other “error” made by the pen writer who wrote No Going Back ? The book places a telephone conversation between Kristi Noem and Nikki Haley in the summer of 2021 rather than November 2020. But it is the content of this conversation that is causing controversy. The governor of South Dakota says she interpreted this call as a threat to her. “It was clear that she wanted me to know that there was only room for one Republican woman in the spotlight. It was weird,” we read in his memoirs. A spokesperson’s version of Nikki Haley: “She called Governor Noem in 2020 to encourage her when she was criticized for keeping her state open during the COVID-19 pandemic. The way she turned that into a threat is just bizarre. »

The hope of being chosen

Despite the controversies that preceded the release of her memoir, Kristi Noem has not given up hope of being chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate, far from it. “He knows I will do everything in my power to help him win,” she told Fox News Digital. “But every day it becomes clear to me that our way of life is under attack. And unless he gets into the White House, this country is going to face very difficult times. » For his part, Donald Trump does not seem to have crossed Kristi Noem’s name from the list of his potential running mates. “Kristi Noem fought incredibly hard for me,” he said in an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News. “She said, ‘I’ll never run against him because I can’t beat him.’ That was a very nice thing to say. »