A Newsmax host got brutally honest with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) about her political future, telling her he doesn’t believe she is still on Donald Trump’s list of potential running mates.
Noem has been under fire in recent weeks over her new memoir in which she confessed to killing her 14-month-old dog Cricket for misbehaving and a false story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un while she was a back-bencher in Congress.
Noem’s interview this week with Newsmax’s Wake Up America got heated after co-host Rob Finnerty told her that she blew her chance of being Trump’s running mate and pressed the governor on her false claim that she met Kim Jong Un.
“Governor, if you asked me a month ago who’s at the top of the list to run with Donald Trump, I would have said your name,” Finnerty said in a clip shared by Mediaite. “If you asked me that same question this morning, I don’t even think you’re on the list.”
“Really? And why is that?” asked Noem.
“It’s because of things that have come out in this book like your claims that you met Kim Jong-un,” Finnerty responded then proceeded to read a passage from Noem’s book about meeting the dictator. “Governor, that never happened, did it?”
“What I have said, in the book, is that when I became aware of the content, that we had it changed, and that’s the way that it is. I should not have put that anecdote in the book,” Noem said.
“But an anecdote indicates that it happened, right?” Finnerty pressed.
“I’m not going to talk about my conversations with world leaders,” Noem said, repeating her go-to response when asked about her alleged meeting with Kim Jong Un.
“Governor, I’m not asking you about the details of this alleged meeting,” Finnerty replied. “I’m asking if the meeting actually happened. I don’t think it did, and I think if it did, you’d be able to confirm for me that, ‘Yes, it did, and here’s when it happened. It happened, say, at such and such a date or a month.’ You don’t have to be specific.”
Noem’s response was to say she wouldn’t discuss her “conversations with world leaders.”
“Again, I think at one point you were at the top of that list, but you’re going to get questions a lot more difficult than that,” Finnerty said.
