Seth is editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight. He was previously a supervising senior producer for South Dakota Public Broadcasting and a newspaper journalist in Rapid City and Mitchell. South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is a podcast from dou worBack now to the DOBR Saturday Morning Show
with Larry Minty. Welcome back.If you were a politician a story that
you killed a puppy because it wasacting up, it's not something you normally
want people to know about. ButSouth Dakota Governor Christy Noam put that story
(00:21):
in her book. She is gettingsteward by the media and late night comedians,
but how is this story playing inher home state. For that,
we talk with columnists Seth Tupper fromSouth Dakota Searchlight. Seth, thanks so
much for joining us. Look,I want to start with I guess the
obvious question. What was Governor ChristyNoam thinking? Did she think this story
(00:45):
of her shooting a dog would bea good thing, that it would somehow
help her? I think so,yes. You know, Governor Knowam,
she has a previous book that shewrote that didn't give much attention. But
you know, she grew up shewas a farm rual and she kind of
idolized her father and compared him toJohn Wayne. And she has this sort
of you know, rough and toughWestern mentality that you know, you do
(01:08):
what you got to do, andyou don't put off decisions and you know,
very pro Second Amendment all of that. And you know, and as
you may have seen in some ofthe what some people have been calling the
humiliation to her, she's been onwhere she went and did a lot of
interviews in the last few days forher book. She really defended it and
(01:30):
said that the reason she put thestory in the book was because she wanted
people to know that she can makethe tough decisions and she doesn't shy away
from her responsibilities. And so Ithink she honestly and apparently still believes it
should have helped her. Yeah,I'm glad you brought up the media tour
because it does seem the more shetalked, the worse it got, and
(01:53):
she also seemed to change her defensemany times. Is that right? Well,
yeah, I mean you would think, you know, when you're digging
the hole, you know, justput down the shovel. But that's that's
not really in her nature. Youknow, She's somebody who goes at things
full tilt and doesn't back down.And they I think the more you challenge
(02:14):
her, the more she wants torise to the challenge, which obviously did
not work in her favor in thisin this instance, but you know,
she did. She did kind ofher story, She did kind of add
some things to her answers as timewent on. We did a story the
other day noting that as she didthese interviews, she started saying that claiming
that everybody in South Dakota already knewthis dog story because her political opponents had
(02:38):
been using against her for years andin South Dakota in journalistic and political circles.
The response was, what you know. I mean, there are some
people who had heard this rumor aboutthis dog, and it was kind of
this weird sort of rumor that wentaround in the background. But I don't
know anybody who ever saw that thishad ever been reported, that it had
(02:59):
ever been used in a political campaign. And we called a lot of her
former political opponents and they said they'dnever even heard the story before. So
she was kind of backed into acorner. And there were some different stories
and things that came out as shetried to defend herself. I like the
headline of one of your stories itsaid, what about the goat? Because
nobody talks about the goat? Sheshot a goat too, right, right?
(03:23):
And that was when this all broke. You know, of course,
everybody understandably focused on the dog,because you know, so many people had
a dog and had a relationship withthe dog, and everybody felt sympathy for
this dog. But you know,in the book, she tells the story
of taking her dog to the gravelpit and shooting it. And then she
says, she's walking back into thefarmyard and she sees this billy goat,
(03:45):
and as I noted in my commentary, apparently the goat's only sin in that
moment was being in the governor's fieldof view while she was very angry.
And I say the governor, shewasn't the governor back then, but anyway,
she had at anyway, right,she had a gun, and then
that was the goat, right,and she had been mad at the goat
for it had been chasing her childrenaround, and she said, it's not
bad. But again, in thatinstance, I mean, the only thing
(04:09):
you can take away from reading thebook is that she was in such a
state of anger, or maybe evensuch a state of rage, that she
just decides, Okay, I'm goingto shoot this goat too. And then
she takes the goat to the gravelpit and shoots it. By her own
account, the goat jumps when sheshoots. Then apparently she only wounds it.
She has to go back to herpickup for another shell, come back
and shoot the goat again. Andso I said, So that was my
(04:30):
commentary, was saying, you know, it's all disturbing, but the goat
story is extra disturbing. And theyled you to believe, you know,
we're in New York, you're inSouth Dakota. They led you to believe
that you're only upset with this storybecause you're in New York or you're an
East Coaster, or that this issomething that happens in South Dakota. Please
(04:51):
tell me this isn't something that happensnormally in South Dakota, not the way
she described it going down. Andyou know, certain I would say that,
you know, somebody in a ruralarea maybe isn't going to be offended
about a story about putting a dogdown as somebody in an urban area.
But but there's a big difference betweenhumanely euthanizing a dog because it you know,
(05:14):
maybe it attacked a bunch of peopleor something, and you know,
getting angry taking the dog out toa gravel bit and shooting it, you
know, and and certainly everybody recognizesthat, you know, she could have
maybe taken the dog to a shelterand you know, you know, given
it some kind of chance at adifferent kind of life other than being a
hunting dog or being around you know, chickens that it had attacked or whatever.
(05:36):
So so yeah, I mean,certainly there's there's a different kind of
reaction urban rur rural, but youknow there's a universal this wasn't the best
way to handle this side of reaction, I think even we have in South
Dakota. We're talking with Seth Tupper, columnists for South Dakota search Light.
It seems that Christy Gnome is nolonger in the running for Donald Trump's running
(05:59):
may be cause of this story.It's not playing well nationally, as you've
pointed out. How about in SouthDakota, though, Does she still have
support there? How is she doingthere? Well, that's what's really interesting.
She's governor for two more years andthen she's term limited, and so
you know, there are a lotof people say, oh, she ruined
her career, but I'm not sosure about that. You know, Number
(06:19):
one, this is a very Republicanleaning state. So you know, there
isn't really any Democrat with any namerecognition or standing who's out there using this
against her right now within the state, and she has the next two years
to you know, sort of retreat, lick her wounds, and figure out
what to do next. I wouldstill leave open the possibility that she could
(06:40):
get a job in a Trump administration, even if she's not the running mate.
If he wins. I don't thinkthat's out of the question. You
know, Donald Trump is a guywe've seen that could appoint her to a
job in the administration just to geta rise out of people. Yeah,
right, yeah, what would sheget National animal Control? Well you never
know, but you know it's beenrumored maybe Secretary of Agriculture, you know,
(07:03):
something like that. Yeah, withtheir farm background. But you know,
or you know, if he doesn'twin, that doesn't happen. You
know, there will have a USSenate race in twenty twenty six, which
the senator who currently holds that jobwill be in his seventies by then.
Whatever he decides could open an avenuefor her to run for Senate. And
you know, whatever has happened here, certainly there's a lot of people in
(07:25):
South Kota who agree with her ona policy level, even if they're be
sort of bewildered and not really knowingright now what to make of everything that's
been going on in the last fewdays. Now. She also claimed in
the book there's so much in therethat she met with North Korean President Kim
Jong un, which she now admitsshe didn't. She was forced to admit
(07:45):
at that point that there were errorsin the book. That's a big error.
Is it possible that she didn't knowwhat was in the book and it
was all written by a ghostwriter?Well, this to me, Yeah,
that's the question we want to answered. And I wrote a commentary specifically on
this. I mean, she reallyowes it, I think, to the
people of South Dakota to give anexplanation, which she has not given.
(08:07):
You know, she's taken, inher humiliation to her to just saying,
you know, when it was broughtto my attention, we removed it from
the book. And you know,when people press her, she says,
I don't talk about my conversations withworld leaders, which just leaves you scratching
your head. I mean, there'sonly two possibilities. Either she made up
the story and put it in thebook and didn't think anybody would catch her,
(08:30):
or she was so disengaged from theprocess of a ghostwriter writing her book
that she never did she didn't knowwhat was in it, and that doesn't
hold up because it's been pointed outmany times prior to all this controversy.
She posted social media videos of herselfnarrating the audiobook, so presumably she knew
what I was in the book.So we don't know, like, how
(08:50):
did this get in the book?And she's never explained that, and it
doesn't look like she ever will.But in South Dakota, it would be
really nice to get an explanation.You know, just this is a politician
who preaches a lot of personal responsibilityand you know, taking responsibility for your
own actions. And okay, soa lot of us are are here asking
(09:11):
why don't you do that and tellus how this happened. Yeah, no,
that's that's a great point. Look, I really enjoyed your columns.
If people do want to read them, where do they go? Just go
to South Dakota search Light. Youcan find them there and we have a
commentary tab on the homepage. Andthen we yeah, also have we can
(09:31):
find any of our Christine Home content. A lot of it's linked together anytime
you find it, so you canread all our work there. That's wonderful.
Again, this is Seth Tupper,columnist for the South Dakota search Light.
Thank you very much. I reallyenjoyed talking to you. Thanks for
having me. Seth Copper, columnistsfor South Dakota Searchlight. This has been
a podcast from dou W O R.
This is a podcast from dou worBack now to the DOBR Saturday Morning Show
with Larry Minty. Welcome back.If you were a politician a story that
you killed a puppy because it wasacting up, it's not something you normally
want people to know about. ButSouth Dakota Governor Christy Noam put that story
(00:21):
in her book. She is gettingsteward by the media and late night comedians,
but how is this story playing inher home state. For that,
we talk with columnists Seth Tupper fromSouth Dakota Searchlight. Seth, thanks so
much for joining us. Look,I want to start with I guess the
obvious question. What was Governor ChristyNoam thinking? Did she think this story
(00:45):
of her shooting a dog would bea good thing, that it would somehow
help her? I think so,yes. You know, Governor Knowam,
she has a previous book that shewrote that didn't give much attention. But
you know, she grew up shewas a farm rual and she kind of
idolized her father and compared him toJohn Wayne. And she has this sort
of you know, rough and toughWestern mentality that you know, you do
(01:08):
what you got to do, andyou don't put off decisions and you know,
very pro Second Amendment all of that. And you know, and as
you may have seen in some ofthe what some people have been calling the
humiliation to her, she's been onwhere she went and did a lot of
interviews in the last few days forher book. She really defended it and
(01:30):
said that the reason she put thestory in the book was because she wanted
people to know that she can makethe tough decisions and she doesn't shy away
from her responsibilities. And so Ithink she honestly and apparently still believes it
should have helped her. Yeah,I'm glad you brought up the media tour
because it does seem the more shetalked, the worse it got, and
(01:53):
she also seemed to change her defensemany times. Is that right? Well,
yeah, I mean you would think, you know, when you're digging
the hole, you know, justput down the shovel. But that's that's
not really in her nature. Youknow, She's somebody who goes at things
full tilt and doesn't back down.And they I think the more you challenge
(02:14):
her, the more she wants torise to the challenge, which obviously did
not work in her favor in thisin this instance, but you know,
she did. She did kind ofher story, She did kind of add
some things to her answers as timewent on. We did a story the
other day noting that as she didthese interviews, she started saying that claiming
that everybody in South Dakota already knewthis dog story because her political opponents had
(02:38):
been using against her for years andin South Dakota in journalistic and political circles.
The response was, what you know. I mean, there are some
people who had heard this rumor aboutthis dog, and it was kind of
this weird sort of rumor that wentaround in the background. But I don't
know anybody who ever saw that thishad ever been reported, that it had
(02:59):
ever been used in a political campaign. And we called a lot of her
former political opponents and they said they'dnever even heard the story before. So
she was kind of backed into acorner. And there were some different stories
and things that came out as shetried to defend herself. I like the
headline of one of your stories itsaid, what about the goat? Because
nobody talks about the goat? Sheshot a goat too, right, right?
(03:23):
And that was when this all broke. You know, of course,
everybody understandably focused on the dog,because you know, so many people had
a dog and had a relationship withthe dog, and everybody felt sympathy for
this dog. But you know,in the book, she tells the story
of taking her dog to the gravelpit and shooting it. And then she
says, she's walking back into thefarmyard and she sees this billy goat,
(03:45):
and as I noted in my commentary, apparently the goat's only sin in that
moment was being in the governor's fieldof view while she was very angry.
And I say the governor, shewasn't the governor back then, but anyway,
she had at anyway, right,she had a gun, and then
that was the goat, right,and she had been mad at the goat
for it had been chasing her childrenaround, and she said, it's not
bad. But again, in thatinstance, I mean, the only thing
(04:09):
you can take away from reading thebook is that she was in such a
state of anger, or maybe evensuch a state of rage, that she
just decides, Okay, I'm goingto shoot this goat too. And then
she takes the goat to the gravelpit and shoots it. By her own
account, the goat jumps when sheshoots. Then apparently she only wounds it.
She has to go back to herpickup for another shell, come back
and shoot the goat again. Andso I said, So that was my
(04:30):
commentary, was saying, you know, it's all disturbing, but the goat
story is extra disturbing. And theyled you to believe, you know,
we're in New York, you're inSouth Dakota. They led you to believe
that you're only upset with this storybecause you're in New York or you're an
East Coaster, or that this issomething that happens in South Dakota. Please
(04:51):
tell me this isn't something that happensnormally in South Dakota, not the way
she described it going down. Andyou know, certain I would say that,
you know, somebody in a ruralarea maybe isn't going to be offended
about a story about putting a dogdown as somebody in an urban area.
But but there's a big difference betweenhumanely euthanizing a dog because it you know,
(05:14):
maybe it attacked a bunch of peopleor something, and you know,
getting angry taking the dog out toa gravel bit and shooting it, you
know, and and certainly everybody recognizesthat, you know, she could have
maybe taken the dog to a shelterand you know, you know, given
it some kind of chance at adifferent kind of life other than being a
hunting dog or being around you know, chickens that it had attacked or whatever.
(05:36):
So so yeah, I mean,certainly there's there's a different kind of
reaction urban rur rural, but youknow there's a universal this wasn't the best
way to handle this side of reaction, I think even we have in South
Dakota. We're talking with Seth Tupper, columnists for South Dakota search Light.
It seems that Christy Gnome is nolonger in the running for Donald Trump's running
(05:59):
may be cause of this story.It's not playing well nationally, as you've
pointed out. How about in SouthDakota, though, Does she still have
support there? How is she doingthere? Well, that's what's really interesting.
She's governor for two more years andthen she's term limited, and so
you know, there are a lotof people say, oh, she ruined
her career, but I'm not sosure about that. You know, Number
(06:19):
one, this is a very Republicanleaning state. So you know, there
isn't really any Democrat with any namerecognition or standing who's out there using this
against her right now within the state, and she has the next two years
to you know, sort of retreat, lick her wounds, and figure out
what to do next. I wouldstill leave open the possibility that she could
(06:40):
get a job in a Trump administration, even if she's not the running mate.
If he wins. I don't thinkthat's out of the question. You
know, Donald Trump is a guywe've seen that could appoint her to a
job in the administration just to geta rise out of people. Yeah,
right, yeah, what would sheget National animal Control? Well you never
know, but you know it's beenrumored maybe Secretary of Agriculture, you know,
(07:03):
something like that. Yeah, withtheir farm background. But you know,
or you know, if he doesn'twin, that doesn't happen. You
know, there will have a USSenate race in twenty twenty six, which
the senator who currently holds that jobwill be in his seventies by then.
Whatever he decides could open an avenuefor her to run for Senate. And
you know, whatever has happened here, certainly there's a lot of people in
(07:25):
South Kota who agree with her ona policy level, even if they're be
sort of bewildered and not really knowingright now what to make of everything that's
been going on in the last fewdays. Now. She also claimed in
the book there's so much in therethat she met with North Korean President Kim
Jong un, which she now admitsshe didn't. She was forced to admit
(07:45):
at that point that there were errorsin the book. That's a big error.
Is it possible that she didn't knowwhat was in the book and it
was all written by a ghostwriter?Well, this to me, Yeah,
that's the question we want to answered. And I wrote a commentary specifically on
this. I mean, she reallyowes it, I think, to the
people of South Dakota to give anexplanation, which she has not given.
(08:07):
You know, she's taken, inher humiliation to her to just saying,
you know, when it was broughtto my attention, we removed it from
the book. And you know,when people press her, she says,
I don't talk about my conversations withworld leaders, which just leaves you scratching
your head. I mean, there'sonly two possibilities. Either she made up
the story and put it in thebook and didn't think anybody would catch her,
(08:30):
or she was so disengaged from theprocess of a ghostwriter writing her book
that she never did she didn't knowwhat was in it, and that doesn't
hold up because it's been pointed outmany times prior to all this controversy.
She posted social media videos of herselfnarrating the audiobook, so presumably she knew
what I was in the book.So we don't know, like, how
(08:50):
did this get in the book?And she's never explained that, and it
doesn't look like she ever will.But in South Dakota, it would be
really nice to get an explanation.You know, just this is a politician
who preaches a lot of personal responsibilityand you know, taking responsibility for your
own actions. And okay, soa lot of us are are here asking
(09:11):
why don't you do that and tellus how this happened. Yeah, no,
that's that's a great point. Look, I really enjoyed your columns.
If people do want to read them, where do they go? Just go
to South Dakota search Light. Youcan find them there and we have a
commentary tab on the homepage. Andthen we yeah, also have we can
(09:31):
find any of our Christine Home content. A lot of it's linked together anytime
you find it, so you canread all our work there. That's wonderful.
Again, this is Seth Tupper,columnist for the South Dakota search Light.
Thank you very much. I reallyenjoyed talking to you. Thanks for
having me. Seth Copper, columnistsfor South Dakota Searchlight. This has been
a podcast from dou W O R.
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