This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
Another cabinet shakeup unfolds in Pierre and our Dakota Political Junkies reported on it.
Veteran South Dakota journalists Jonathan Ellis and Seth Tupper join In the Moment for another Junkies conversation. They discuss the resignation of Gov. Kristi Noem's chief of staff Mark Miller and more state political news.
Ellis is a veteran South Dakota reporter and co-founder of The Dakota Scout, an independent newspaper.
Tupper is editor-in-chief of the independent publication South Dakota Searchlight.
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Jackie Hendry:
Welcome back to In the Moment. I'm Jackie Hendry. In today for Lori Walsh.
Governor Kristi Noem has made local and national headlines lately. Our Dakota Political Junkies are here to discuss the stories, her actions, and possible motivations. From a springtime border deployment to shakeups in her staff, to targeting Target, our junkies dive into the political news of the week.
Jonathan Ellis is a veteran at South Dakota Reporter and co-founder of The Dakota Scout, an independent newspaper, and he joins me today in SDPB'S Kirby Family Studio in Sioux Falls.
Jonathan Ellis, welcome to the program. Thanks for being here.
Jonathan Ellis:
Hey, thanks for having me, Jackie.
Jackie Hendry:
Also, Seth Tupper is editor in chief of the independent publication South Dakota Searchlight. He joins me from SDPB'S Black Hills Surgical Hospital Studio in Rapid City.
Hey, Seth, great to hear from you. Welcome to the program.
Seth Tupper:
Hey, Jackie. Great to be here.
Jackie Hendry:
Let's start with the most recent news that I believe Dakota Scout broke more or less, at least you're the first one I saw it from, was the resignation of Governor Kristi Noem's longest serving Chief of Staff. Mark Miller. Seems like we hear frequent resignations from this administration, that happens, but what do you take away from this most recent news of some of the resignations in the Noem administration, Ellis?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well ... So political opponents always use this, you hear this a lot about Kamala Harris, the vice president, that she loses a lot of staff, and you hear Republicans say, "Oh, she's a tough person to work for." I mean, that would be a conclusion that maybe Kristi Noem is a demanding boss in some sense.
You know, Miller leaving is ... He was not from South Dakota. His family was still in Florida. So there are probably some other extenuating circumstances in his departure as well. I think there's some departures ...
You know, we have not heard a lot about ... We were hearing a lot about Kristi Noem potentially running for president. We're not really hearing that so much anymore. And I think some people are attracted to what they would think would be high profile campaigns. So not only that departure, but some others on the staff could be tied to the fact that she's not going to be running on a national ticket, at least as president.
Jackie Hendry:
Seth, what's your read on the situation?
Seth Tupper:
Well, Mark Miller was always sort of a bizarre choice for Chief of Staff. I mean, I think when I first heard a guy from Florida was going to be the Chief of Staff, you know, is there no one in South Dakota who can do this job?
So his departure, he was always going to leave at some point, right? I mean, as you know was referenced in The Dakota Scout story, he talked about his family still being back in Florida and needing to get back there. So he was never long for the state, which I think leads you to ask then why were we hiring a guy from Florida to be Chief of Staff? It's kind of a bizarre choice.
So some of the departures we've seen from the Noem administration, it was, as Jonathan indicated, people who maybe were attracted here because they saw Governor Noem as a rising national figure and they thought they wanted to be a part of that and maybe they would follow her somewhere else, and maybe some people have realized that that train's not leaving the station at least right now, and so maybe they've decided to leave.
And in other cases, it's just normal turnover. You know, people that left the private sector to work in government for a few years and never intended to stay and are just leaving.
So different reasons for every departure probably, but certainly when you hire people from out of the state, you probably don't expect that they're going to stay forever.
Jackie Hendry:
Sure.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. For those who were hoping to be on a presidential campaign, they apparently picked the wrong Dakota.
Jackie Hendry:
Yeah, I mean, can we touch on that for just a second? I think a whole lot of us had our sights here at home and then our neighbor to the north ... Surprise. Or maybe not for our neighbors to the North. But was that a surprise to you, I guess, Jonathan?
Jonathan Ellis:
You know, I hadn't been really tracking ... I mean, I don't really start paying attention too much to who's in the race until probably when we get a little into fall, and that's when you start to see ... Because there'll be some people who are in the race who simply just don't even ... They peter out even before we get seriously going.
But yeah, I mean, if we get up to those numbers, and of course with the former president being indicted again, a much more serious indictment than the first time, it leaves a lot of uncertainty into that field, for sure.
Jackie Hendry:
Right.
What about you, Seth? Do we foresee a North and South Dakota ticket for president potentially? Maybe that's where we're going.
Seth Tupper:
Well, that would be something, wouldn't it? And then maybe we have John Thune ascending to the top spot in the Senate if McConnell leaves and the entire country will be ruled by the Dakotas, but-
Jackie Hendry:
Take down the time stamp right now and we'll come back to this someday.
Seth Tupper:
But yeah, it was surprising. And I think it just makes me chuckle, and I think we all have to realize and have some perspective that political speculation is just that. You know, the last several years, the speculation has run wild that Governor Noem would run for president, and I certainly think she probably thought about it and has acknowledged that she thought about it, but it is kind of funny that all the while there was a guy up in North Dakota quietly plotting and organizing and really doing the work to actually seriously run for president and nobody saw that coming while everybody was talking about the Governor of South Dakota.
Jackie Hendry:
Right.
I just want to make a quick little shout out to Tony Venhuizen's SoDAK Governor's blog. He spoke a little bit on that about the governor's Chiefs of Staff. He himself was a Chief of Staff for former governor Dennis Daugaard, so has some insight into that. He's got a little table that he made up of past Chiefs of Staff to his knowledge, and you look through here, you know, Janklow has a handful in both administrations, Rounds has a handful. No one quite reached five, but it's been a weird five years. So what can we really take away from that kind of turnover?
So I just want to point that out. We lead with that because it's a recent piece of information, but who's to say?
Let's move now to, Seth, I believe this was from you in South Dakota Searchlight, about Governor Noem's plans to use emergency and disaster money to pay for border troop deployment. This feels a little bit like deja vu to me. Bring us up to speed on those conversations.
Seth Tupper:
Certainly yes, strong sense of deja vu.
So she announced earlier this month that she was going to send at least 50 troops to the southern border, which she said was the request of the Governor of Texas, to support efforts down there to secure the border with Mexico. And of course, a lot of people remember that a couple of years ago, Governor Noem did a similar thing, but at that time she accepted a million dollar donation from a Tennessee billionaire to fund the troop deployment. And so of course, when this news release came out that said she was sending troops again, our obvious question was, "Well, how is she going to pay for it this time?"
And the answer we got from a Governor Noem spokesman, Ian Fury, was that she was going to fund it from the State's Emergency and Disaster Fund. And it turns out the portion of the deployment two years ago that wasn't covered by the million dollar donation, another half million dollars or so was covered by that same fund. But this time, if presumably, it costs another million and a half dollars to do a deployment of a similar size, it'll all come out of the Emergency and Disaster Fund. And so we went back and thought, "What is this fund actually for?"
And when you listen to the legislative testimony, this last session, legislators budgeted two and a half million dollars to put into that fund. And thanks to SDPB, we can go back and listen to all the testimony of all the committee and floor hearings on that standalone bill, which was a standalone appropriations bill. And it was really interesting because every single person who talked publicly about this bill said that these are for things in the state or within the state's borders or in South Dakota, and it's essentially to help communities recover from disasters, natural disasters, floods, wildfires, tornadoes, and to help them prepare for future disasters. And nobody ever said that this was going to go to send troops out of state down to Texas to help secure the border.
So some legislators are not happy about that. And we talked to Lee Schonebeck, senator from Watertown, a Republican, who said that basically if Governor Noem is going to do things like this with the money that maybe legislators didn't intend, she might have a little more difficulty with her appropriations requests next year.
So it ruffled a few feathers, for sure.
Jackie Hendry:
And it sure seemed like she already had some difficulty with some of her appropriations requests this last session.
Ellis, what's your take?
Jonathan Ellis:
Well, she's one of several Republican governors who have sent troops down to the border, given what's going on there, and there's some optics, political optics, of course, to that. I don't know how practical troops are, 50 soldiers are when you're talking about a migrant crisis of tens of thousands. So there is an optic issue there.
I'd also say though that with regard to the funding issue, there are lots of little slush funds all over state government that governors have used. I'm reminded of a fund I wrote about many years ago now, but it was funded through ... It was for relay services, telecommunications for the deaf people. And it was funded through a charge and it built up this sizeable amount of money that was in this little slush fund. And the Rounds administration was siphoning money away from it.
So it's not unusual that governors find these funds somewhere and take money. What is unusual, however, as Seth had pointed out, that Lee Schonebeck, "Hey, this is a line in the sand here a little bit." And so that will be interesting to see if there are political consequences to that.
Jackie Hendry:
Yep. Very telling. Well, stay tuned for that legislative session fallout, potentially or not.
Do we dare tread into the realm of Target and Pride merchandise and companies and ...
Jonathan, I'm looking at you, and maybe we'll start there. I've already tipped my hand on my thoughts on the situation and how much airtime I think it's worth, but that's not me.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah. I don't know that it's ... It's certainly worth air time. This is an interesting issue within the culture wars. And on one side, we have the movement of being accepting to all people living in a very diverse country, and on the other side too, you have conservatives who feel like, "Hey, this stuff's getting crammed down our throats." And so it's naturally a big ... It's emerged into a major fault line and it's got huge political consequences on both sides. And so it's worth the air time because it's going to be a big issue.
Jackie Hendry:
Right.
What about you, Seth?
Seth Tupper:
Well, what interests me about it, I guess, is why does Governor Noem keep inserting herself into these national issues that get her on Fox News, and as your reporter Lee Sterbinger pointed out, allows her to make a fundraising appeal immediately afterward to national donors when apparently she's not running for president this time around? Although we don't technically know that yet.
But it just shows, I think, that obviously she is interested in staying in the national conversation and has ambitions beyond the governor's office where she'll be term limited in 2026. And there's apparently some kind of idea in the Noem camp that she needs to stay constantly in the national conversation, constantly be raising money from national donors for something, whatever that is, be it a future run for the Senate or to try and get on the ticket with somebody who's running for president, or who knows what.
But obviously the fact that she keeps inserting herself into these national debates shows that she's not just going to go away and retire when she's term limited as governor.
Jackie Hendry:
Yeah.
And I feel I should clarify. My tired sigh is not to say that this doesn't matter. I think it feeds into a bit of that outrage de jour that sometimes we can get caught up in, but to Jonathan's point, it's yet another touchstone in the culture war that this is a part of the conversation that, frankly, maybe more people are paying attention to than pipelines or any number of other things that might seem a little bit more closer to home.
Jonathan Ellis:
That's so boring, pipelines.
I guess unless it's your North 40 that's going to get one, but yeah.
Jackie Hendry:
Yeah.
Tax structure? No way.
Jonathan Ellis:
Right.
Jackie Hendry:
Closing out, just a little bit of time, we have a Kaplan Strategies poll of South Dakota Republican voters finding Governor Kristi Noem the most well-liked politician in the state, winning out with 78% favorable rating compared to Senator Mike Rounds, Dusty Johnson, potential future candidates for governor.
When I hear ... Granted, I don't know. This is a question probably for Kaplan Strategies about how we're operationalizing likability; I think about the joke of, can you have a beer with them?
But Seth, maybe I'll start with you on this one. How big a weight do you give a poll like this?
Seth Tupper:
Well, not much. I mean, it was sort of an odd ball thing, this out of nowhere Kaplan Strategies, this out-of-state company releasing a poll that they say that nobody commissioned about races that are two cycles away in hypothetical matchups that nobody's committed to. Right? So you take that with a rather large grain of salt.
Now, we're on Political Junkies, and I guess I'm as interested in it as anybody else. I mean, the purpose of the poll seemed to be show that Governor Noem would whoop up on anybody in any Republican primary, basically is what it showed, for Senate or House or whatever races for Congress. So that certainly made me wonder behind the scenes, and I don't know, and I don't have any information on that, but it certainly made me wonder, is there some tie to supporters of Governor Noem or whatever? Because the polls sort of seemed like a shot across the bow that said, "Hey, if you think you're going to go up against Governor Noem in a Republican primary, you're going to lose." And so I'm a little curious as to where that comes from.
I thought Dakota Scout did a great job, and Jonathan can talk about that, of pointing out that the poll left out Marty Jackley, which was sort of an odd thing to do in a poll about future races in South Dakota.
Jackie Hendry:
Yeah, very interesting indeed.
Ellis, I'll give you the last 30 seconds.
Jonathan Ellis:
Yeah, I mean, instead it had Russell Olson, former Madison lawmaker, instead of Marty Jackley. That was a red flag.
Kaplan Strategies is a new law firm. I've been on this show many, many, many times in the last, I don't know, almost 15 years, and I've cautioned be very careful about polling. I've said that more than probably anything, that we have to be very careful about polling. And this was just kind of a treat, I guess, for Political Junkies, but there's nothing really serious at this point in this deal.
Jackie Hendry:
Well, that's our dessert for our time this week. Our Dakota Political Junkies, Seth Tupper with South Dakota Searchlight, Jonathan Ellis with The Dakota Scout, thank you both for your time, your expertise, and your patience with me and my occasional frustrations with the subject matter.
Jonathan Ellis:
You did great. Thanks.
Jackie Hendry:
Thank you guys.
