Donald Trump picks South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem as next Secretary of Homeland Security
According to the media, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been selected by Donald Trump to be the new secretary of homeland security.
CNN used “two people familiar with the selection” to back up their allegation, albeit they are not identified, even though the news hasn’t been formally verified. The Department of Homeland Security is crucial to President-elect Trump’s simultaneous commitments to reduce illegal immigration and deport millions of illegal migrants who are already in the country since it oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Noem was elected governor of South Dakota for the first time in 2018 and was re-elected four years later. She was seen as one of the front-runners to be Trump’s running partner for vice president in early 2024. Her chances, however, drastically decreased when excerpts from her 2024 memoir No Going Back were released, in which Noem spoke about slaughtering her 14-month-old puppy Cricket after deciding it was “untrainable.”
Throughout her career, Noem has been involved in a number of scandals, including the murder of Cricket, being barred from the territories of multiple Native American tribes, being accused of staging a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and receiving backlash for advertising a cosmetic dentistry procedure in Texas.
Prohibition on Tribal Lands
After alleging that several of South Dakota’s nine legitimate Native American tribes had been recruited by drug gangs, Noem was prohibited from visiting their territory in 2024.
In January 2024, the governor first asserted the assertion before a joint session of the South Dakota Legislature, saying: “There is no denying that the cartels are present on a number of South Dakota’s tribal reservations. Tribal members have been successfully recruited to participate in their illegal activities.
“We have some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Noem said in a March statement, adding further details to her accusation.
Frank Star Comes Out, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, told The Associated Press: “Our people are being used for her political gain.”
Noem said in a May statement to CNN: “I only want to speak truth to the real challenges that are being faced in some areas of Indian Country.”
Cricket shooting
The British newspaper The Guardian published extracts from Noem’s biography, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, in April 2024.
The 14-month-old dog Cricket was shot by Noem in one excerpt after it attacked a family’s hens and then “whipped around to bite me.”
“I realized I had to put her down,” Noem said, characterizing Cricket as “untrainable” and adding that she “hated that dog.”
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the Republican House, told Politico: “Killing the dog and then writing about it ended any possibility of her being picked as [Trump’s] VP.”
After receiving harsh criticism, Noem said in a subsequent Fox News interview that she decided to kill Cricket because she was worried about the safety of her kids.
“You know, as a mother, that story was a decision,” she remarked. the protection of my kids from a vicious dog that was attacking people and killing animals.”
Additional Book Controversies
The assertion that Noem had met with Kim Jong Un was part of early drafts of No Going Back that many media outlets obtained before it was published. “I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un,” Noem wrote, as reported by The New York Times. He probably misjudged me because he didn’t know that I had experience dealing with small-time dictators—after all, I had been a children’s pastor. Dealing with foreign leaders requires effort, planning, and resolve.
Ian Fury, a spokesman for Noem, said that the anecdote should not have been included in the book and will be taken out before it was published after concerns were expressed about it.
The governor said, “I’m not going to talk about my specific meetings with world leaders, I’m just not going to do that,” in response to a May CBS News interview asking whether she had met Kim Jong Un. I immediately made sure that this tale was removed from the book when it was pointed up to me.
Noem also said in her book that she was “slated to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron” but chose to postpone after his “what I considered a very pro-Hamas and anti-Israel comment to the press.” In November 2023, Noem traveled to Paris to speak at the Worldwide Freedom Initiative meeting. The Élysée Palace, however, denied this story, claiming that there was no documentation of a planned meeting between Macron and Noem.
After promoting a cosmetic dentist, I was sued.
Travelers United, a consumer advocacy organization, sued Noem in March 2024 for promoting the work of a cosmetic doctor in Texas that she claimed had done treatment on her own teeth.
According to Travelers United, Noem “seems to have taken up work as a social media influencer as of 12 March 2024.” The governor was accused of “advertis[ing] a product or service without disclosing that she has a financial relationship with that company.”
“To be clear, I never received compensation for any alleged ‘advertisements.'” Noem responded on X, previously Twitter.
