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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Key GOP senator says Noem’s dog shooting story could hurt her with | |
voters if Trump picks her as running mate | |
By Ted Barrett and Kristin Wilson, CNN | |
Updated: | |
9:08 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
South Dakota GOP Sen. Mike Rounds said Gov. on her family farm could | |
hurt her with voters if former President Donald Trump chooses her as | |
his running mate. | |
“I don’t see how it helps,” Rounds said. | |
“I’ve had dogs,” he said. “I just think that when a family | |
decides to put down dogs, it’s a very personal and private decision | |
to be made. Not something to be made lightly. It should be very | |
personal and private.” | |
Noem, a South Dakota Republican, did not keep it private, detailing the | |
shooting of the 14-month-old dog in her book as she described the | |
gritty life she navigates in rural America. | |
According to an excerpt, which was , Noem killed her dog Cricket | |
because the dog was “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came | |
in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.” | |
“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, according to the Guardian. | |
Asked by CNN if the story about shooting her dog will hurt her with | |
voters if Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, picks | |
her as his running mate, Rounds said yes. | |
“I don’t think anyone has taken a poll on it, but I can tell you, | |
as a person who has had dogs in the past, my kids have got dogs and so | |
forth. It is an item of discussion. I don’t see how it helps,” he | |
said. “These dogs become a member of a family, you know. People | |
identify with that.” | |
Noem tied at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February | |
in which attendees were asked who they’d like to see Trump pick as | |
his running mate. Noem and former presidential candidate Vivek | |
Ramaswamy each received 15% of votes in the straw poll. | |
Rounds, asked whether Noem should have put the story in her book, | |
responded: “I’ve never written a book or had a desire to write a | |
book. So, I can’t talk to the reason for doing it.” | |
Noem’s other fellow South Dakotans in Congress were less sure about | |
the negative ramifications the controversial story may have on public | |
opinion. | |
Senate Minority Whip John Thune largely declined to comment, saying, | |
“I’ve seen the reporting on it. She’s offered her responses to | |
the questions that have been asked. So I just don’t really have any | |
observations on it.” | |
As for if it could hurt her chances of being picked to be Trump’s | |
choice for vice president, he said, “I don’t know the answer to | |
any of that.” | |
“I think that who Trump picks is going to be largely up to him. | |
Sounds like she has at least been in the running and we’ll see what | |
he decides to do,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. | |
Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson defended his home state’s governor. | |
“Life is a little different in rural America,” he said. | |
“I will tell you, there are lots of people in rural America, who if | |
an animal’s got to be put down, they would do that themselves. I know | |
most people would go to the vet, but I would tell you that Kristi Noem | |
was not the first or the one thousandth, you know, farmer or rancher | |
that’s put down an animal themselves,” he said. | |
Noem took a similar stance in a statement Friday, saying, “We love | |
animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm. | |
Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been | |
in our family for 25 years.” | |
She also included a link to order her forthcoming book “No Going | |
Back,” which she said will have “more real, honest, and politically | |
INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping.” | |
Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, who got in trouble when he was | |
running for president in 2012 for having during a cross country trip, | |
reacted to the Noem news by taking a shot at Trump, of whom he is a | |
chief critic. | |
“I didn’t eat my dog and I didn’t shoot my dog. I loved my dog, | |
and my dog loved me. And I guess it kind of makes it a little difficult | |
for President Trump to find someone to be his VP, so, he’ll have to | |
look for someone smarter than him, a better speaker than him, and - | |
like him - does not get burdened with principles,” Romney told | |
reporters in the Capitol, also seemingly taking a shot at his former | |
rival Barack Obama — who in his book “Dreams From My Father,” | |
published in 1995, as a boy in Indonesia. | |
Noem, in the book excerpts, also details shooting a goat, which she | |
describes as “nasty and mean” and having a “disgusting, musky, | |
rancid” smell. The goat made a habit of chasing and knocking down her | |
kids, she says. | |
“I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn’t tell the story | |
here,” Noem adds, according to the Guardian. | |
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