Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) is not precisely heat and fuzzy. He once threatened to fight an internet stranger who challenged his rejection of the 2020 election outcomes. He’s a firearms fanatic who has publicly suggested that Black Lives Matter protesters needs to be met with power by police. More just lately, Higgins personally manhandled a progressive activist at a press convention.
But even Higgins is aware of: you do not brag about capturing a puppy.
Yet that’s precisely what South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem did. In her new memoir, Noem recounted how she as soon as introduced a 14-month old wirehaired pointer named Cricket that she “hated” to a gravel pit on her household farm and shot her lifeless.
“I just can’t get my head wrapped around being angry at a dog, and bringing them into the woods, and shooting them,” Higgins informed The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “So if that’s what happened, that’s gonna be a problem.”
Once thought of a rising star and a attainable vice presidential contender for Donald Trump, Noem is now hemorrhaging support in the former president’s orbit, and her probabilities for the No. 2 slot have tanked.
On Capitol Hill, many Republicans know Noem: she served within the House from 2011 to 2019. It is perhaps anticipated that the South Dakotan’s canine scandal could be met with a extra muted reception in a House GOP the place lurid scandals, private beefs, and weird public conduct at the moment are the norm.
Not precisely.
“I think it’s terrible and a form of animal cruelty,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) informed The Daily Beast. “I don’t appreciate it, and I think it does hurt her chances of being vice president—though I’m not sure that she was one of the top contenders.”
Malliotakis’ disapproval is to be anticipated: the Staten Island consultant is a Republican chief on animal safety and a widely known canine lover who final 12 months floated her chihuahua, Luna, to be Speaker of the House. She has a 100 percent rating as well as an endorsement from the Humane Society.
But even GOP lawmakers with out cred within the animal rights neighborhood are critically postpone by Noem’s story. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) has an 18 p.c lifetime rating from the Humane Society, however mentioned of Noem’s puppy slaughter, “I don’t know if it’s something I’d be bragging about.”
Some in GOP circles are speculating that Noem shared the anecdote to spice up her powerful, gunslinging picture. If that was the purpose, Burchett—who has two King Charles Cavaliers and a mutt—thinks Noem misfired.
“I’ve got three dogs. I’m not shooting any of them,” Burchett added, “even though they eat my wife’s shoes.”
Some of Noem’s Capitol Hill allies are defending her, insisting she nonetheless has a political future. With various levels of fervor, a number of defended Noem’s character and the cruel realities of rural farm life however shunned personally endorsing canine killings.
Hard-right Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), for instance, speculated that regardless of the wall-to-wall media protection, the typical voter isn’t protecting tabs on Noem’s repute as a pet proprietor.
“If you ask Main Street U.S.A., they’re gonna say, ‘Kristi Noem killing a dog?’ No. It’s not an issue,” Norman informed The Daily Beast.
Another Republican, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), mentioned he isn’t giving the scenario a “second thought.” Zinke served with Noem when he was first within the House.
“I like Kristi,” Zinke informed The Daily Beast. “No doubt she did the right thing.”
But maybe Noem’s greatest protection thus far got here from her fellow South Dakotan, Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), who informed CNN that “life is a little different in rural America.”
“I know most people would go over to the vet,” Johnson mentioned. “But I would tell you that Kristi Noem was not the first or the one thousandth, you know, farmer or rancher that’s put down an animal themselves.”
But by and enormous, Republicans are cautious of associating themselves with a canine slaying. The remainder of the South Dakota delegation hardly backed their governor up. Sen. John Thune (R-SD), a possible future chief of the Senate GOP, told reporters he doesn’t “really have any observations on it.”
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) struck a extra crucial tone.
While Rounds told Politico that placing a canine down is a “private and personal matter,” he added that “in most cases where a dog does not perform well in the field, it probably has more to do with the training they received than with the dog itself.”
A spokesperson for Noem didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Noem is hardly the one politician with puppy-shaped skeletons in her closet. Experiments carried out by Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz reportedly killed 329 dogs.
A 2007 Boston Globe story mentioning Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) strapping his canine Seamus to the roof of his automotive in a canine provider sparked a “Dogs Against Romney” Facebook group when the previous Massachusetts governor ran for president in 2012. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) as soon as owned an organization accused of mistreating 170 dogs and monkeys used for lab testing.
Asked within the Capitol Hill halls concerning the Noem controversy, Thanedar didn’t weigh in, as an alternative handing The Daily Beast his official business card.
The story of Noem capturing her canine is exclusive for its apparent brutality, but in addition as a result of it got here instantly from the supply. The governor’s choice to volunteer the morbid story in her personal autobiography spurs critical questions on her attainable motivations and political acumen.
Democrats are seizing on the story as a weird anecdote from a Trump disciple that sparks one more jarring information cycle for MAGA Republicans and shows questionable judgment.
“Killing a puppy, I mean, there’s something wrong with her,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) informed The Daily Beast. “That she thinks it’s to her political advantage to brag about that is something I just don’t understand.”
But Republicans clearly aren’t afraid of dogpiling. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who hosts an annual pup parade within the Capitol, informed HuffPost, “She’s obviously not an experienced dog trainer, because I’ve seen ill behaved dogs are usually a reflection of their owner.”
“I don’t see it as a net win for anybody but the dog killers caucus,” Tillis mentioned.
Moderate Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA)—a distinguished Republican within the Congressional Animal Protection Caucus—didn’t say a lot concerning the Noem controversy, however put his evaluation bluntly, telling The Daily Beast that “the reports aren’t good, I’ll say that.”
“Obviously those reports are troubling,” Fitzpatrick mentioned, including that killing a puppy is “not something I would do.”
Higgins, the Louisiana Republican, defined that there are many scandals that politicians can come again from. He posed the hypothetical “recovered” drug seller operating for public workplace.
“We go, ‘Yay. You’re wonderful. We’ll vote for you,’” he mentioned. “You could have been a horrible person and done criminal stuff.”
“But my point is that as a society,” Higgins added, “we don’t have that level of forgiveness for people who are cruel to animals.”
