This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Seth Tupper, editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight, steps into SDPB's studio as our Dakota Political Junkie.
We continue the ongoing conversation about the fallout swirling around Gov. Kristi Noem's memoir "No Going Back."
The book has been on shelves for two weeks. We look at which controversies are fading and which are still holding fast in the public's memory. Plus, we ask what the next headline about Gov. Noem could say and her potential political paths forward.
Learn more about South Dakota Searchlight's political coverage.
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The following transcript was auto-generated.
Lori Walsh:
For today's Dakota Political Junkies conversation, we have Seth Tupper. He is editor-in-chief of South Dakota Searchlight, and he's seated in SDPB's Black Hills Surgical Hospital Studio in Rapid City. We're going to talk today about the ongoing fallout from Governor Kristi Noem's second book. It's called "No Going Back."
Seth Tupper, welcome. Thanks for being here.
Seth Tupper:
Hey, thanks for having me, Lori. Did something happen with Governor Noem? I hadn't heard. Was there a controversy there?
Lori Walsh:
There's been a few things. There's been a few things. There's a stack of things, which is, you have written extensively about this on South Dakota Searchlight and, of course, across the world, but certainly across the nation there are new stories almost every day about this memoir.
As you look at it, as we are moving into week two since the release of the book, what are some of the things that are still rising to the top of this story that you think are worth beginning with today?
Seth Tupper:
Well, there are still a couple of things we're looking into, which we haven't written about yet, but just as we worked our own way through the book.
But you mentioned week two. I guess what's rising to the top now, for me, is just how fast controversies in the modern age can fade into the background. And in week two, it already seems like we're on year two, sort of, to me. Time moves that fast and the news cycle moves so fast that we're already starting a little bit to see this fade into the rearview mirror as Governor Noem stays in the news every day for other things, including her continuing feud with leadership of Native American tribes in the state. And that's come more to the foreground this week.
And as everybody talks more about that, they talk less about the controversies with the book and shooting the dog and the goat and the Kim Jong Un story and all of that.
So I guess that's what stands out for me in week two is how quickly things fade, how fast and furiously they flare up all over the country, stories like this, and then how fast they fade when everybody moves on.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, she had a bad week, is that it?
Seth Tupper:
It might be. I mean, that may sound crazy. In one way, this will stick to her forever. I think whenever she pops up in the national news from now on, someday when somebody writes her obituary, she will forever be the governor who released that crazy book with the dog and goat story and the Kim Jong Un story that turned out not to be true. I mean, that will stick to her forever, I think.
But in the long run, she's governor through 2026, so she's not going anywhere. She's got two years to chart a course and plot her next moves and retreat and lick her wounds a little bit. And in South Dakota, I mean, who's going to really make hay with this? The Democratic Party doesn't have anybody right now that looks like they're going to run against her and beat her for anything. I'm not sure anybody in the Republican Party is relishing an opportunity to run against her in a primary.
So to me, I think there's still a chance that if Trump wins the presidency, she could get a Cabinet post perhaps. I mean, a lot of people would say that she's wrecked her chances to be on the ticket for VP. I'd probably agree with that but, of course, we don't know if she was going to be chosen anyway. She may have, not have.
But I think she could still potentially get a Trump post if he wins. And if not that, then after 2026 she'll have some decisions to make, maybe could run for Senate. Mike Rounds' term will be up then, we don't know what he's going to do. And so that's a long time from now and in a state where Republicans dominate, I don't know that this is going to be something that takes her down if she wants to continue her career.
Lori Walsh:
What is your takeaway about the interviews themselves? Because she's known for not sitting for interviews within the state or doing interviews nationally with people who are largely friendly toward her, and this is the first time that she's faced, in quite some time, a wide range of professional journalists from different news organizations.
Are there lessons there for her? Should she be doing this more often and getting coached on how to do it better or does she just turn away and say, that is the media that I've always been telling you would just completely be unfair to me. I'm never going back to them again. Any takeaways that as you watch her interact with some of the nation's top journalists in top markets, what did you make of that?
Seth Tupper:
Well, I think the takeaway that I take, I'm not sure she takes this away from it, but what I take away is this, I don't know, M.O. that some people in politics have of just digging in and sticking to your talking points.
We learned how ridiculous that can look as Kristi Noem went from media outlet to media outlet with this talking point about, with the Kim Jong Un story. She removed that from future editions of her book, her publisher removed it, so obviously you don't remove something that's true, yet in interview after interview, she trotted out this line that I don't talk about my conversations with world leaders, and that was the answer she gave over and over and over.
And those sound bites just sound ridiculous. I'm not sure she sees it that way. She may see it as I stuck to my guns and I never let them get to me.
But again, the other takeaway from that is though all those sound bites are there for somebody to use against her in a future political campaign, but that takes somebody with some standing and some fundraising prowess to take those sound bites and turn them into political ads. And is there anybody on the horizon who's going to do that in South Dakota against Kristi Noem? I don't see it right now.
Lori Walsh:
So the problem, and you mentioned this in some of your writing, is that it's either an incompetency or a falsification.
As we unpack these things, it is not just that Kim Jong Un's name got put on a list of world leaders. It is on a list of world leaders in the book, but then there is also the anecdote, and when Margaret Brennan first asked her about this, she was like, you haven't been to North Korea. And Kristi Noem said, well, yes I have. And then finally, as time goes on, we clarify. Well, she'd been to the DMZ, we're assuming there was some kind of congressional visit, which is interesting to figure out when exactly that happened since congressional visits to the DMZ are fairly rare.
What is your assessment of this anecdote? Did it come out of thin air or does she have such a misunderstanding of the politics of Korea, of the Korean Peninsula that she thought somehow it was okay to talk about it in that way?
Certainly, if she's staring down Kim Jong Un, that would not be very good for the tensions either. So there's just a real lack of understanding of what even that story means to people, I guess, is my question. Or this other idea that the ghostwriter completely put it in there and now it needs to be taken out.
Seth Tupper:
Well, and what I continue to think about all of that is that she really owes the voters of South Dakota an answer on that. But I also, it appears every indication has been given that we're never going to get the answer. I don't know how many times she was asked, must be over a dozen, during the book tour that she did in the interviews that she gave, and interviewers pressed her with repeated questions. They came at it different ways and she just would never budge. Would never explain exactly how this Kim Jong Un anecdote got into the book.
So we don't know, and we may never know, and that's very disappointing. As I pointed out in my commentary, her book has a lot of references in there to the value of taking responsibility for your actions and things. And she hasn't taken responsibility for, or given us a full explanation for how this anecdote got in the book. We don't know how it got in there. We can only guess, as I did, in my commentary. And yeah, it'd be nice if she would explain this.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah, when you don't answer the question, it causes speculation. But she thanks the ghostwriter in the back of the book, so we know this person's name. I looked him up. He does books. Maybe there's some kind of contract between the author and the ghostwriter that prevents her from talking about it.
But to your point, and again, that is speculation because we don't have an answer to your point. She read the audiobook. And so at some point she would've known that anecdote was in there, and that's why people are having a really hard time understanding what exactly happened.
Seth Tupper:
Yeah, and the ghostwriter's not talking. We actually found a phone number for him, and one of our reporters called him and he did not talk to us, I guess we'll put it that way.
So I don't know what the arrangement is there. We thought maybe as the ghostwriter who was taking some blame for this, that maybe the ghostwriter would want to talk. On the other hand, perhaps the ghostwriter doesn't want the ghostwriter's name affiliated with this in any way after all that embarrassing things.
Lori Walsh:
His name's in the book, so I mean, yes.
Seth Tupper:
You do have to look for it. I mean, it's not on the cover page or anything like that.
Lori Walsh:
It's at the end and the acknowledgments.
Seth Tupper:
Could easily be missed.
Lori Walsh:
It's not that hard to find. I left my book at home, otherwise I would find the page for you. But it's back there.
What happens next for her? You mentioned moving on, some of these things are going to cling if she runs for national office. Clearly, people are going to bring them up again. But here in South Dakota, is she any less loved by the people who support her? Is there any whispering behind hands? And what kinds of headlines make this go away for her? What is her next move?
Seth Tupper:
I don't think she is any less loved or supported by her core supporters. I really don't think so. I think there were some of them that really saw this as a head-scratching moment and why did she do this and saw this as self inflicted political wound. But she hasn't been accused of bribery. She hasn't been accused of embezzling money, so you keep that in perspective and I think her supporters would look at it and say, well, they still agree with her on policy matters and things like that. And as time goes on, those will probably be the things that really matter to her supporters.
Lori Walsh:
Does she do an effective job of this because I heard her say this many times. I don't want politicians who are brought down by one thing because we don't have to be perfect. Donald Trump wasn't perfect, and what we like about him is that he is like us. Did she do an effective job of attaching herself, not to Donald Trump as a person or as a candidate, but as a brand and methodology of saying this is a new way? Because that's what she's saying in the book, there's no going back to this old way of politics. This is a new way of doing things, and you're going to have candidates who have done things on the ranch that the rest of the country doesn't understand, and that's who I want in office. I want people just like you. I want people just like me. That is what she kind of led with a lot.
Do you think that was an effective shift for her?
Seth Tupper:
I don't think we'll know if that's effective until the next time her name's on a ballot or if Trump wins, if she remains in the Trump orbit. I did notice, as you said, she mentioned those things in the books and a couple of appearances she's done lately since her book tour. She's also really pressed that line of rhetoric about, Hey, this book is full of honesty. And so she definitely is trying to use that line and trying to make that effective.
Whether it will be helping her get over this, again, I don't think we'll know until we see to what degree Trump remains loyal to her or distances himself from her, or to what degree this hurts her when her name's on a ballot again.
Lori Walsh:
So what does she do next? What's her next big headline?
Seth Tupper:
Well, of course, Axios, you probably saw a lot of people saw it reported and something that had been rumored for a while that she had been maneuvering to try to get the top job at the NRA. I don't know if that's still in her realm of possibility.
Certainly, I think it's possible if Trump wins, she could get a job in the Cabinet.
If none of that comes to fruition, I would have to think she would be looking at the Senate in 2026. She's already been in the House, she's been governor. If Mike Rounds decides to retire, there'd be an open Senate seat. If he doesn't, she would consider running against him in a primary maybe, and what a crazy race that would be. But those would be the avenues that would be open to her, I would think.
And then, of course, there's the avenue, I don't know if she wants this, and I don't know if this would be open to her, and this could be something where she did hurt herself is there's a certain avenue for politicians who want to be talking heads and appear on Fox News and travel the country speaking, and she may have damaged her prospects in that vein. As we saw, even Fox News hosts really went after her in interviews on her book tour. So that may be a door that may be closed, at least for now.
Lori Walsh:
It's hard to say, and we should point out that her office denied the Axios story that she would leave the governor's office early to go do that job. They vehemently denied that part of the story, at least. It is hard to say whether someone's enjoying the back-and-forth of the national media.
But she did say in the book, I'll always go back to farming. She did say on a couple of those stages, I'm ready to go home to South Dakota. It's a little unclear whether she liked doing that enough to have that be a future talking head shouting back and forth with people about national politics and when you don't control that as much as— I'm not sure if I could ask her, I'd ask her, do you enjoy being in that space or was that space just not for you? I'd love to know her thoughts on that.
Seth Tupper:
Yeah, if there's one thing that's for sure about her future, I don't think she's just going to go back to the farm. Once you've been surrounded by people who make you believe that you might have a shot to be vice president or even president, and you've had the exposure to that, I think it's pretty tough to ever go back from that. And I don't see her just fading into obscurity, that's for sure. I see her trying to remain relevant in whatever one of those options we discussed or some other option we're not seeing.
Lori Walsh:
There's no going back to the farm, maybe.
Seth Tupper:
Exactly. Exactly.
Lori Walsh:
Maybe. We don't know. All right. This is Seth Tupper. You can find all his work at southdakotasearchlight.com, and as you said at the beginning of this interview, for careful listeners, they're working on more stuff, so you might want to check it in the future.
Seth, thanks so much.
Seth Tupper:
Thanks for having me.
