“The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg nearly lost it at Democratic South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem over her admission of fatally shooting her puppy.
Noem wrote about killing Cricket, her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, due to her alleged “aggressive personality” and inability to be a good hunting dog, according to her upcoming new book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” She also fatally shot her family goat for chasing down her children.
“Give it back, bitch! Give it back!” Goldberg shouted. “Why are you gonna kill it? But, she said it killed her neighbor’s chickens…she defended herself though. She said it’s tough decisions like this that happen on farms all the time and that she followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner and neighbor.”
“Nah,” co-host Sunny Hostin replied.
“Which part was the parenting part?” co-host Sara Haines asked.
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin said the dog’s behavior is due to Noem’s incompetence in training it, telling a personal story of how she was at fault for her dog once killing a chicken. She said a misbehaved dog should be sent to a shelter for high risk pets. (RELATED: ‘I Have To Stop You’: Whoopi Goldberg Calls Out Audience Member In Middle Of Panel)
“I want justice for Cricket, it’s terrible,” Griffin said.
Hostin suggested Noem may be a sociopath for killing animals. Co-host Ana Navarro renamed Noem “Governor Cruella,” based off of the dog skin hunter Cruella de Vil from author Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel, “The Hundred and One Dalmatians.”
Noem defended her decision to kill Cricket due to South Dakota’s law allowing for owners to put down dogs who “attack and kill livestock,” according to The Guardian. The dog, adopted to hunt pheasants, allegedly killed a family’s chickens by “grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another.”
“Whether running the ranch or in politics, I have never passed on my responsibilities to anyone else to handle,” Noem said. “Even if it’s hard and painful. I followed the law and was being a responsible parent, dog owner, and neighbor. As I explained in the book, it wasn’t easy. But often the easy way isn’t the right way.”
I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons…
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) April 28, 2024
Griffin said former President Donald Trump will find Noem’s behavior “bizarre” and unrelatable, and not worthy of a potential vice presidential candidate. There is much speculation that Noem published her book to appear as a strong running mate.