Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D) book is mired in more controversy ahead of its release after she appeared to have made up a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Noem already courted controversy when she confessed to killing her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket, in her upcoming book, No Going Back, because the dog ruined a pheasant hunt, killed a local family’s chickens and tried to bite her.
The Dakota Scout, a local newspaper from South Dakota, is also reporting that Noem claimed to have met Kim Jong Un while she was a back-bencher in Congress which seems highly unlikely.
In her book Noem wrote: “Through my tenure on the House Armed Services Committee, I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders. I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all). Dealing with foreign leaders takes resolve, preparation and determination. My experiences on those many foreign trips made me a better member of Congress and a stronger governor. It allowed me to hone my deal-making skills, which play a crucial role in leadership.”
But congressional travel records examined by The Scout and experts raised serious doubts about Noem’s claim.
“I don’t see any conceivable way that a single junior member of Congress without explicit escort from the U.S. State Department and military would be meeting with a leader from North Korea,” said University of Notre Dame professor and North Korea expert George Lopez. “What would have been so critical in his bag of tricks that he would have met with an American lawmaker, this one distinctively?”
A high level congressional staffer who worked on the Armed Services Committee with Noem called her claim of meeting with Kim Jong Un “bullshit.”
Noem’s spokesman, Ian Fury, appeared to admit that the story is false telling POLITICO: “We’ve been made aware that the publisher will be addressing conflated world leaders’ names in the book before it is released.”
Noem also wrote about canceling a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron last year. Macron’s office said that is not true.
Noem also appeared to have lied about being “threatened” by former GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley in the summer of 2021.
“Nikki has long called and written notes supporting other women when they go through challenging times,” Haley’s spokesperson Chaney Denton told POLITICO. “She called Governor Noem in 2020 to encourage her when she was criticized for keeping her state open during Covid. How she would twist that into a threat is just plain weird.”
