“I hated this dog,” Noem wrote, referring to his 14-month-old wirehaired pointer.
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The eldest child of Donald Trump revealed how the president-elect reacted to Kristi Noem’s admission that she fatally shot her dog.
The South Dakota governor, now Trump’s pick for Secretary of Homeland Security, confessed in his memoirs to shooting his 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, Cricket, 20 years ago. The confession provoked surprise and outrage, and many believed that their hopes of fitting in with their vice president were over.
Donald Trump Jr. recalled his father’s reaction to the shocking tale to Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, who detailed it in his upcoming book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power.
“It’s a smart thing,” Donald Trump allegedly told his son, according to the New York Post, which received a copy of the book.
“Even you wouldn’t kill a dog, and you kill everything,” the 78-year-old Republican said, referring to his son’s common adventures.
In her book No Going Back, Noem wrote: “I hated that dog.” She added that Cricket was “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”
“At that moment,” Noem continued, “I knew I had to put her down. “He admitted that “it was not a pleasant job. . . it had to be done. “
The dog-killing story emerged as Trump was weighing his pick for running mate; Noem was considered to be on his veep shortlist, although she was reportedly “cast aside” long before the dog-killing story came to light.
Rumors of a romance between Noem and Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 crusade director, have helped the governor’s chances of joining the 2024 Republican ticket, Isenstadt wrote.
Noem has denied the alleged affair.
In addition to romance rumors, the then-Republican candidate expressed some concern about choosing Noem as his running mate. The duo met at Mar-a-Lago in February 2024, according to the book.
They discussed her state’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country, which stipulates the only exception to the ban is to save the pregnant person’s life.
“Trump came away inspired through Noem,” Isenstadt wrote, “but remained concerned about how his state’s legislation would be used against her through Democrats. “
In response to the claims in the book, a spokesperson for Noem said: “This wouldn’t be the first time that [the author] reported fake conversations that Governor Noem never had … As I have said many times, the allegation of an affair is completely false. She never had conversations with President Trump or his team about a nonexistent affair. I look forward to seeing [the] book on the ‘fiction’ shelves.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, also responded to the allegations in the upcoming book. “President Trump won a historic victory because he laid out an ambitious vision for this country after four disastrous years of Joe Biden,” he said. “We will not dignify those types of salacious, unverified stories that have nothing to do with helping the American people or making America great again. »
The Independent has contacted representatives for Lewandowski, Noem and Trump for comment.
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