The rollout of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem‘s (R-SD) new memoir will no doubt go down in history as a case study for how not to write a book as a politician.
Still a few days before the whole book is released, more anecdotes from Noem’s memoir No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward are emerging. And they are further sullying the governor‘s image.
Just days after the release of an excerpt that detailed how she shot a farm puppy named Cricket, another anecdotal story from the memoir includes details from Noem’s time on the House Armed Services Committee and how this afforded her the opportunity to meet the reclusive leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un.
“Through my tenure on the House Armed Services Committee I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders,” Noem writes in the book. “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).”
You read that right: The at-large representative of the state of South Dakota stood up to the pudgy dictator of North Korea and intimidated him thanks to her experiences leading Sunday school for children.
This of course, would be a great story to tell about the ins and outs of public service in the House of Representatives if it were true. The only problem is that it is entirely false. Members of Congress do not go to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un, because only odd ducks such as former basketball star Dennis Rodman go to North Korea to meet Kim Jong Un. In fact, no president had even met with the leader of North Korea until Donald Trump did in 2018.
Another anecdote from the book is in serious dispute as well, where Noem accuses former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley of offering to “mentor her” while also issuing a vague threat in 2021. According to Politico, Haley’s team disputes that the conversation even took place and that the two leaders only spoke in 2020 about COVID-19 lockdowns.
While these outlandish tall tales will certainly help sell the book, in less than a week Noem has single-handedly managed to destroy her political career in a bid to cast herself as the tough no-nonsense politician that the people desperately need.
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For someone who so desperately wants to be Trump’s vice presidential nominee and clearly harbors presidential ambitions of her own, Noem has displayed shockingly poor political instincts while resorting to brazenly telling falsehoods that are among the easiest stories to fact-check. At this point, she would be lucky to win a nomination for any office, let alone for the presidency.
Her political downfall has been swift, complete, and entirely self-inflicted.