This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
South Dakota Searchlight recently published two editorials exploring the national reputations of a few South Dakotan politicians.
George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey are remembered for their work addressing world hunger. A commentary by Seth Tupper, editor-in-chief of Searchlight, explores their legacy and enduring impacts.
His other commentary analyzes Gov. Kristi Noem’s severed political partnership with Corey Lewandowski.
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Lori Walsh:
In two recent editorials, Seth Tupper analyzed a few South Dakotans' political partnerships and how they're talked about on the national stage.
One covered how George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey worked with others to address world hunger. They both left enduring legacies that continue to feed hungry families internationally.
The other editorial commented on Gov. Noem's partnership with Corey Lewandowski.
Seth is the editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight. He is our Dakota Political Junkie for today. He is joining us from SDPB's Black Hills Surgical Hospital Studio in Rapid City. Seth, welcome and happy birthday to South Dakota Searchlight today.
Seth Tupper:
Hey, thank you. Yeah, we launched one year ago today, Oct. 25, 2022. So, thanks to everybody who's read and subscribed and contributed. And thanks to my staff. It's been a fast year.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. Tell people who haven't found out what South Dakota Searchlight is yet what your mission and purpose is. Tell us a little bit about the organization.
Seth Tupper:
Yeah, so we're part of States Newsroom, which is a national nonprofit. And they've stood up independent newsrooms in websites, and I think they're in 36 states now and there's more coming online soon.
But anyway, we were funded on a nonprofit basis by grants and donations, and we put all of our work out for free and we allow it to be republished by other media outlets for free if they choose to do that. And we focus on statewide coverage, mostly in politics and policy and that kind of thing, but it's kind of an experiment with funding this kind of news operation in a different way. And it's been going great so far, and we're having a lot of fun.
Lori Walsh:
Help people understand before we talk about these two editorial pieces. You've worked for the Rapid City Journal. You worked for South Dakota Public Broadcasting. You have other newspaper experience under your belt as well.
When you sit down to work on commentary for South Dakota Searchlight, what's your mandate for that program and as an editor?
Seth Tupper:
Well, yeah. One of the things that is in my job description actually with South Dakota Searchlight is to have commentary and do commentary and try to be what they call a thought leader in the state.
And so, I think it really helps having spent my entire career in South Dakota. When I was at the Daily Republic in Mitchell years ago, I had the opportunity to interview people like George McGovern on a regular basis at that time. And so, I kind of have a lot of experiences and interviews and stories and different things piled up over the years. And when I get a news release like I got recently about a program that has George McGovern's name on it, I was able to kind of reflect back on some of those interviews I'd done with him and things I'd read about him over the years and use that as a jumping off point to try to just advance a conversation and give a little historical perspective on what people can achieve in politics on a lasting basis if they're willing to set aside politics for a little while and work on getting things done.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. So let's talk about George McGovern and efforts to feed the world. He's another South Dakota politician who had national and even international ambitions. We talk about ambition a lot as if it's a bad thing. Not necessarily if you're going to feed people.
Tell me a little bit about the press release you got and what we know about George McGovern's food for peace program.
Seth Tupper:
So the press release recently came from the Department of Agriculture, just kind of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Just kind of a routine announcement that they were putting $455 million this year into two international food programs, Food for Progress, and then something called the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which is a mouthful, obviously. But it just occurred to me when I saw that press release that $455 million going to that program. Wow. What a legacy for somebody whose name is on that program.
And that's George McGovern, who was born in Avon and grew up in Mitchell, went to DWU, was a World War II veteran, a long-time politician in Congress for South Dakota and then also the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee. As you said, he lost in a landslide to Nixon.
So that was kind of the jumping-off point for the commentary was just that here's a guy who obviously had a lot of political ambition and climbed the ladder, steadily, of politics in this country. But along the way, obviously, he took time to work across the aisle and to get things done. And one of those was — throughout his career, a very consistent focus of his was feeding people, hungry people, around the world. And he said that when he was in World War II as a bomber pilot, he saw in Europe how much people were suffering under, for example, the fascist Mussolini government in Italy.
And he realized how hard it is to stand up and maintain a democracy when the people you're counting on to participate in that democracy don't have their basic needs met and are hungry.
And so, a constant focus for him throughout the rest of his life was feeding people. And he thought that American agricultural surpluses could be put to work around the world feeding hungry people. And if you feed those people, that's an instrument of peace, basically, and maybe we won't have to have a World War III.
And that was a lot of his focus. And so now the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program, which feeds school kids around the world, is named for him and his Republican colleague, Bob Dole, who worked together with him on a lot of hunger issues. And that program has fed more than 5 billion school meals to more than 31 million children around the world, which is quite a legacy.
Lori Walsh:
So you argue here that there's not only, or I should say what I'm hearing you say, is that not only did he feel, did George McGovern feel, there was a moral imperative to feed people, largely because of what he witnessed in his military service, but also he thought that it was politically viable and important and even crucial in order to advance democracy to do that as well. Those two things went together for him.
Seth Tupper:
Absolutely. And I'm not saying George McGovern was perfect by any means. He was a human being and a politician. And of course, there's always a political component to things. He was appointed head of the Food for Peace Program by John F. Kennedy in the 1960s and that was sort of a rung on the political ladder for him. So, it was all kind of interwoven. He was a true believer in feeding hungry people around the world and saw the need for it, worked across the aisle to do it. In some ways, it also benefited him politically.
But the main takeaway that I had from it was just that in this era we're in now, where look what's going on in the U.S. House today, it seems like sometimes everything is about politics. Certainly, things were political in the 1950s, '60s, '70s, and there were a lot of things wrong in that era too. But there were leaders like George McGovern and Bob Dole who were willing to work across the aisle at points and say, "Well, there's a time for politics and there's a time for setting aside politics for the good of the country or for the world."
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. He also had his political opponents and a pretty hefty FBI file, and he famously sparred with the FBI scandals, things that were buried, things that people wanted to use to hurt him in his campaign. That hasn't changed much. Only now we have Twitter and social media to see a lot more images of these things.
Let's jump to the present time when you wanted to write about Gov. Kristi Noem and her relationship with political consultant Corey Lewandowski. Why did you want to tackle that topic publicly now?
Seth Tupper:
Well, two different things. I mean, one, this whole coverage, there's been two different websites outside of South Dakota that have published the claim that Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski are having an affair. And those stories are based mostly on anonymous sources and you can take from that what you will. But it reminded me of something I knew about from the past, which was in the 1990s when U.S. Senator Larry Pressler from South Dakota dealt with a situation where two people wrote a book called "Washington Babylon," which was marketed as an expose of Washington politics. And there was a chapter on Larry Pressler and they claimed in that book that he was gay and that his marriage to his wife was a sham.
Well, Pressler sued the publisher and got a settlement and the publisher of that book had to apologize. This was back in 1998. And so I just went looking for that because I thought what's being reported about Kristi Noem now kind of reminds me of that. And then I realized it's the same guy. The guy who wrote the story for the Daily Mail, Ken Silverstein, co-wrote it and is the co-author of this book "Washington Babylon" from the 1990s. So, that was one reason I wanted to just point that out, which I hadn't seen pointed out.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. The same guy who got it wrong, who had to apologize, who had to fight in court, he has now done this hit piece on our governor after doing this on our senator.
Seth Tupper:
Correct. And again, people can draw their own conclusions, whatever. But I just thought that needed to be part of the record, basically.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. He said it was inaccurate and hurtful. I don't know. That's the conclusion, right?
Seth Tupper:
That was what the publisher said at the time about the Pressler reporting.
Lori Walsh:
Isn't that the conclusion? And Gov. Noem said, "This is an old tired attack on conservative women. It's total garbage. It's a disgusting lie." That's part of the conclusion as well. But you make this other point, which is I think very interesting for us to talk about, which you say we don't really need to know what's going on between Gov. Noem and Corey Lewandowski because you say their relationship is inappropriate, anyway. Tell me about that.
Seth Tupper:
Yeah, so let's just give Gov. Noem the benefit of the doubt and say what's been written in the tabloids, and let's assume for a second that that's not true and this is just basically—
Lori Walsh:
We have zero evidence that it's true.
Seth Tupper:
—a professional relationship. Right.
Lori Walsh:
We have zero evidence that this is true.
Seth Tupper:
Right. Other than hearsay. So let's assume it's not and let's assume this is just a nationally ambitious governor who's working with a national political consultant.
Well, the problem with that is you start looking into Corey Lewandowski's background, and, boy, does he have a lot of stuff in there that's troubling. He was arrested in the late 1990s for this odd thing where he was working for a congressman and brought a loaded gun into a House office building. The congressman he was working for at the time ended up being criminally convicted in a corrupt lobbying scandal. That was Congressman Bob Ney, who Abramoff later called the mentor and a surrogate father and when his surrogate father and mentor is a guy who was criminally convicted of basically taking bribes in Congress, that's a problem.
And then, of course, Corey Lewandowski has also been accused multiple times of acting improperly toward women, including one time at a charity fundraiser in Las Vegas where Gov. Noem was present and witnessed some of the behavior.
And so why do you associate with this guy? And there's been a couple reporters, as we've mentioned, who are alleging that it's because they're having an affair, without really any real evidence or anything. So we have to ponder, "Well, if that's not the answer, what is the answer?" And the only thing I can come up with then is that Gov. Noem apparently thinks this guy is so good for her political ambition and can help her so much politically that she's willing to overlook some of this troubling behavior in his past.
Lori Walsh:
So, she has walked away from him and Ian Fury says they've never paid him a dime. She's not in a relationship with him, a professional relationship, with him anymore. Last time he was in South Dakota, they did not even greet on the tarmac. So, has she satisfied the call for severing a political relationship with Lewandowski?
Seth Tupper:
Not that we know of, no. Because despite the fact that the governor's spokesperson says she cut ties with him, they have been seen together on many occasions since then. Maybe not many, I shouldn't say, but on some occasions since then. And so there doesn't seem to be a complete cutting of ties there. They're still attending some functions together. So, I guess that would be my question is for somebody who now has really subjected Gov. Noem to really terrible stuff and the tabloids and dragged her down into the mud and her family and her name and has all these other problems besides that, why wouldn't you just sort of swear off this guy and stay away from him. That would be my question, I guess.
Lori Walsh:
What do you think her answer would be?
Seth Tupper:
Well, I don't know. All I can speculate again is what I did in the commentary, which is apparently there's a thought that this guy can really service her political ambitions and is a good connection to have if she wants to get on the Trump ticket as vice president or do anything else nationally that she may have ambitions of doing.
Lori Walsh:
So what I'm hearing him say, and by him, I mean Ian Fury, is that she hasn't paid him and that they don't have connections. She's saying that the idea that their relationship is inappropriate or unprofessional is a lie. We've heard her saying in the past when we were asking her about candidate Donald Trump before he was president, she said, "I don't need him to be a role model. I need him to pass the conservative legislation that America needs." And she said at that time that Jesus Christ was her role model. So, we know the thought process of this governor is, "I don't have to vet everyone I stand next to in a picture to make sure they've never done anything wrong. This guy turned out to be trouble. I am not very close to him anymore."
But she's saying, "Hey, this is just a well-timed attack" — because it came right after she endorsed President Trump from her political enemies — "and I'm not all that concerned with it. I'm getting back to work."
We know she said all those things. I mean, I'm paraphrasing the governor right now, but these are all things that we have heard her arguments for. What do you make of all that?
Seth Tupper:
I guess I don't know what to make of it. I'm a little bit confused. I think like a lot of South Dakotans, because again, we hear all that, and her spokesman said she cut ties and all this, but yet there he was at the Trump rally, and there she was, and Donald Trump was calling him out by name and calling her out by name.
And that's part of the reason I wrote the commentary and ended it the way I did, which was I'm just a little confused as to why there isn't a little more effort to keep a greater distance from this guy. Again, if I was associated with somebody who had put me through the wringer in the tabloids the way that this association with Corey Lewandowski has done with Kristi Noem, I would think I would be a little more prone to be a little more strict in cutting ties with him and not being at the same events, et cetera. So, it remains a mystery to me why there hasn't been more of a cutting of ties in that way. Because, I mean, even if you believe everything Kristi Noem has said, I mean, still just her association with him has been very harmful to her it seems like. So, yeah, I don't really know. And I think like a lot of South Dakotans, I'm just confused as to why there isn't more of a hands-off, completely strict severing of ties with this guy.
Lori Walsh:
You can find Seth Tupper's work online at southdakotasearchlight.com. He's joined us for our Dakota Political Junkies conversation this week. Happy birthday, one year of South Dakota Searchlight.
Thanks for stopping by, Seth.
Seth Tupper:
Thanks as always for having me.
