Kristi Noem Clarifies: That Dog Was Just The Hired Help, And Then I Killed It With A Gun

PR crisis over now?

May 02, 2024

Looks like Kristi Noem is doing the media tour to “defend” herself now. And we guess Sean Hannity is not willing to give up on the idea that Noem is Donald Trump’s ideal veep candidate, so he let Bounty The Dog Hunter come on and say something, anything to make herself sound like a regular person with feelings.

Spoiler: She did not make it better.

SEAN HANNITY: Governor, you have responded. You responded on X on Sunday and you gave more explanation to this but you talk about this 14-month-old dog as untrainable. You describe it as a “trained assassin,” how the dog was killing chickens of a local neighbor and how the dog even went to bite you and I believe bit others as well.
Tell us in your words why it came to that decision. I mean, unfortunately dogs that are violent sometimes have to be put down but I guess people, because you shot the dog — is there a difference which way you put a dog down? I'm not really sure, but I don't think people understood it. I want to give you a chance to explain.

In other words, Hannity was begging Noem to say something that made her seem like less of a monster. Something besides “I hated that dog,” or “And then once I was done with the dog murder, I did a goat murder, HOOOOOOOO BOY.” (Not exact quote on that second one.)

GOVERNOR KRISTI NOEM: Well, Sean, you know, how the fake news works. They leave out some or most of the facts of a story. They put the worst spin on it and that's what's happened in this case. I hope people really do buy this book

She hopes people really buy her book, so they can stop putting the worst fake news spin on Furry Corpses: A Day In The Life Of Kristi Noem.

and they find out the truth of this story because the truth of this story is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy.

Just the hired help. Not the kind of dog you love or anything. “Hey, where’s Cricket?” asked Noem’s daughter Kennedy afterward. Kennedy obviously was still at an age where she doesn’t know any better than to bond with the yard crew.

Also, Cricket was 14 months old, AKA old enough for a murderin’.

It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance and she was — the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were a part of our neighbors, she attacked me and it was a hard decision.

The Noems were Cricket’s second chance, and she squandered it. At 14 months old. Which in most dogs is usually before that last growth spurt that sends them into adulthood, but again, she was a mere member of the staff, so Noem lured the dog and also a goat — the dog, untrained; the goat, un-neutered, which would seem to be Noem’s responsibility and not the animals’ — and she killed them with her gun but OH FIDDLESTICKS the goat rejected the murdering the first time so she had to do it again.

Did that clarification help? PR crisis fixed?

Or should Kristi Noem go on more shows and tell more animal stories? We bet she’s got some.

[Media Matters]