South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem suggested on Sunday that President Joe Biden's dog, Commander, would face a similar outcome as her own 14-month-old dog, Cricket. In her forthcoming memoir, Ms. Noem revealed that she had to shoot Cricket because of his aggressive behavior.
On Sunday, the Republican vice presidential hopeful appeared on CBS' “Face The Nation” and asked Americans to “make a choice between your children or a dangerous animal.”
Speaking about President Biden's dog, Ms. Noem said: “Well, first of all, Joe Biden's dog attacked 24 Secret Service people. So how many people are enough to be attacked and dangerously injured before you make a decision about a dog? And –That's the question the president must be accountable for.”
Last October, the Biden administration announced that the dog had been moved from the White House grounds after incidents of it attacking and biting U.S. Secret Service agents.
According to a CNN report, Kristi Noem outlined her priorities on day one in her book “No Going Back,” stating that if she were president, she would make sure Commander “wasn't anywhere on the premises.”
The report quotes her in the book: “What would I do if I were president on my first day in office in 2025? Thanks for asking. I happen to have a list. The first thing I would do is make sure Joe Biden's dog was nowhere on the property (“Commander, say hi to Cricket for me”). But my dog, Foster, would certainly be welcome. He comes with me to the capital all the time and loves everyone.”
Defending her actions in killing her 14-month-old dog Cricket, Ms. Noem said in the same CBS interview: “This was a dangerous animal that killed livestock and attacked people. And I had small children at the time, at our operation there were a lot of children running around and people interacting with the public. And I made a difficult choice. I think you're a mother too. And you have small children, would you make a choice between your children or a dangerous animal?
She continued, “And I think I would ask anyone in the country to put themselves in that situation. Because that's what I had to deal with and I'm talking about it because what I've had enough of in this country is politicians pretending to be something they're not. That they are not willing to have the hard conversations and look at the past and the difficult decisions they have made. I'm… what I talk about in depth in the book when people get it on Tuesday is to see the whole story and the truth, not the spin that the media has put on this story. The media has redacted or deleted most of the facts, and the reason this is there is because I want people to know that I am not asking anyone else to take on my responsibilities. I understood my responsibility. As a mother, I made the choice between protecting my children and protecting them from a dangerous animal that was killing livestock and attacking people. And that's a decision I've made…
Ms. Noem further explained that her dog remained uncontrollable despite months of training.
She added: “This dog was fine, this dog was a working dog. And it came from a family that already had problems with this dog. And I had put months and months of training into this dog. This dog had also gone to other trainers. So that's all the facts of the story. All this shows that when you put someone in a position where they have to make a decision, and they want to protect their family and protect children and other people from being attacked by an animal that has attacked others and killed livestock, that that is the choice. I made it over twenty years ago. And that I didn't ask anyone else to take that responsibility for me, that I had to make that decision myself.”