It has been noted that the stars of CNN This Morning has tested the premise that Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) shared her puppy-murdering past as a way to appeal to former President Donald Trump because of Trump’s anti-dog rhetoric via Mediaite.
In an anecdote from Noem’s upcoming book, No Going Back, there’s a story about murdering a puppy because it wouldn’t behave, kept killing chickens, and didn’t bite her but “whipped around” to do so.
During the widespread outrage and revulsion, Noem put out a statement defending the puppy murder. On Monday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, anchor Kasie Hunt questioned her panel of CNN commentators if this might have been a way of ingratiating herself to Trump — who has a history of disturbing dog quotes:
KASIE HUNT: I mean, what is, what’s up with Kristi Noem?
MATT GORMAN: You know, let’s take a step back. You know, before this, I thought she was a very good on paper candidate to be VP. Obviously, we just talked about abortion. Having a woman on the ticket would certainly help things. But you’re right. If you are not even the other party, if you’re some of her possible vice presidential kind of rivals.
KASIE HUNT: They’re all fighting with each other
MATT GORMAN: Yeah. Exactly. Right. So you’re you’re you’re putting this out as well with one other thing I would say is, you know, like you kind of broke down the hush money and what it really means, this is something this is a story. It’s pretty easy to explain in a sentence. People can understand it. It can break through, you know, your parents and your mom who might not follow politics that closely, can understand it pretty clearly. And that’s the danger. If you’re Kristi Noem, this can break through and define her in a way.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: If you are, if you are on day three, day four of explaining your literal —
KASIE HUNT: This came out on Friday.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Puppy murder.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Puppicide–
KATE BEDINGFIELD: You’re not winning. I mean, I just it’s it is everything about the story. Yes, absolutely. Life on a farm. I’m not. I don’t live in a rural area, but even in the way she tells the story.
In her own book, by the way! This isn’t like somebody leaking on her trying to, like, land a hit. Like this is how she describes the story in her own book, the like. I hated that dog. And then like, I mean, I just it is it is troubling. And again, I just go back to like if you are on day four of explaining your puppy murder, you’re not winning.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: So I frankly love to ask the politics people. My cynical, question is, did someone find out about the story and that she had to just preempt it by putting it out there? So, so other people didn’t raise it first. So she still has a.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: If so this is a really a.
KASIE HUNT: It’s a weird way to frame it.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: If this was her positive framing of what she thought was a negative hit coming down the track. It she did not– That makes that just doesn’t make any sense.
KASIE HUNT: Is she trying to like– I mean so Donald Trump, you know, famously hates dogs. He, will talk he’ll use the phrase like, so-and-so should be shot like a dog. Like, is she trying to, like, appeal directly to him in aggressive language?
MATT GORMAN: I don’t think so. I don’t think I mean, look, I can’t get inside her head, but you’re right. I mean, this was in a book. This went by multiple editors, and this was written months ago as we I mean.
But but like, this isn’t something that was just off the cuff. You remember when Mitt Romney, the whole Seamus the dog thing, happened off the cuff at a fundraiser with his son, very.
KASIE HUNT: Seamus the dog with this family dog who traveled on a family vacation in a crate on top of the car. Yes, it became a huge problem.
MATT GORMAN: But it was it was off the cuff. It wasn’t written in a book. Yeah, edited for months in advance.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: Yes, yes it is. And again, is it trying to look tough for, for, a president former president who values toughness and she’s a female candidate. Look, I’m just trying here!
This is reprehensible. And it’s hard to explain how someone. So there’s got to be an expert.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: And I mean, look like Trump. Trump hates dogs. Fine. But more than that, Trump also hates losing. Right. And so now you’ve, she’s like, made herself, essentially like radioactive by telling this story in this way.
And people across the, across the political spectrum are rightly horrified because it’s essentially it’s like animal cruelty. And she’s bragging about it! So I, I don’t.
KASIE HUNT: That’s where I got stuck like a bragging, like holding this up as, like an example.
KATE BEDINGFIELD: Right. And it wasn’t. And she doesn’t present it like it was this horrible choice that I had to make. I mean, she in her like day two of trying to clean it up where she tweeted like, you know, we love our animals. And we had three horses that were lived with us for 25 years that we just had to put down. That’s a different kind of story than like aggressively bragging about murdering a 14 year old, a 14 month old puppy.
KASIE HUNT: Right, okay, so I that’s enough. I’ve had enough of the puppy murder!
