Donald Trump may have nominated South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to his cabinet, naming her the next Secretary of Homeland Security. But that doesn’t mean he’s above joking about her admission, in her autobiography last year, that she once shot and killed her own dog.
Now, a new book reveals that Trump made a joke about the dog killing- at the expense of his son, Donald Trump, Jr. Per the New York Post, there’s an anecdote in the upcoming book “Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power,” by Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, in which Trump reacts to the Noem revelations.
“That’s not good at all,” Trump said, per the book. “Even you wouldn’t kill a dog, and you kill everything.”
Donald Trump, Jr., is an avid hunter and has been photographed holding up an elephant’s tail, taken on a hunting trip in 2012.
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Trump is famously not a fan of dogs, even frequently using “like a dog” as one of his favorite insults. But he seemed to realize that Noem’s admission was going to be politically damaging in a nation of dog lovers. While Noem doesn’t seem to have ever been a serious candidate for the presidential ticket, she weathered the storm to the point where she was named to the cabinet.
“Even you wouldn’t kill a dog, and you kill everything,” added the elder Trump to his son, according to an excerpt of Isenstadt’s book shared with The Post Tuesday.” lol https://t.co/sdBIKhN52v
— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) January 14, 2025
The book also reported that Trump was “amused” by longstanding rumors of a more than purely professional relationship between Noem and Corey Lewandowski, the on-and-off Trump adviser who also for a time advised Noem as well.
It remains to be seen whether Noem will be asked about the incident in her confirmation hearing.
The Hill reported this week that Noem’s confirmation hearing has been “postponed,” by two days to Friday morning, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The reason for the push, the report said, was ” a delay on the FBI background check for Governor Noem.”
That’s also the reason why the hearing for Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee to serve as Director of National Intelligence, has been delayed as well, although the Gabbard hearing has not been rescheduled.
Another report, by Politico, found that while Noem caught a light of grief for that memoir, she at least earned a lot of money from it. The governor received an advance of $139,750 for the book.
Photo courtesy of the Politico Tribune media library.
