When South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) sat down with Fox News last week amid a growing tempest over her killing her dog, Sean Hannity gave her the softballs-in-a-storm treatment often reserved for Donald Trump.
On Monday night, Newsmax host Eric Bolling offered an even more ham-handed attempt to explain it all away. He offered that perhaps the inclusion of the dog story in Noem’s book and an apparently false anecdote about meeting Kim Jong Un were the work of a “liberal plant” book editor. (Noem assured him that these were her own words.)
Something has happened since then, though. Conservative media has begun to turn on Noem, actually grilling her over her book and even ridiculing her.
Why? It’s pretty evident, and it’s the same reason conservative media and the GOP often turn on their own after putting up with plenty: She’s become a perceived liability for the brand.
By Tuesday morning, Newsmax was giving Noem a very different treatment. A host told Noem he didn’t think she was in the mix for Trump’s running mate anymore. (“Really? And why is that?” Noem responded.) He suggested Noem’s brazen effort to not actually deny meeting Kim would continue to haunt her.
Fox Business host Stuart Varney an hour later peppered Noem with five questions about whether Noem had broached the dog story with Trump. “Enough, Stuart,” an exasperated Noem responded. “This interview is ridiculous — what you are doing right now. So you need to stop.”
Noem suggested they talk about other issues, but Varney said they were out of time. “Oh, well of course we are,” Noem responded sarcastically.
By Tuesday night, with plenty of people asking why Noem was still talking, she finally canceled a Fox News interview (citing bad weather).
Clearly irked by the late cancellation, hosts Greg Gutfeld and Dana Perino proceeded to roast Noem by having Perino do the interview as the governor. They pointed to how Noem, despite insisting she had just learned of problems with her book, had previously recorded it as an audio book.
“I said some words that were written about me, and they were in a certain order of — they call them sentences,” deadpanned Perino-as-Noem. “And so I read those aloud. I don’t know if that means I’ve read the book.”
Perino-as-Noem added: “A little known fact: Another one of my dogs, his name was Ghost Writer. And I killed him this morning.”
It’s all quite an un-conservative media thing to do in the Trump era. Fox and Newsmax hosts have become studied at trying to explain away Republican controversy as the work of nefarious and censorious political opponents — as they initially tried to do with Noem. Why would they suddenly take issue with Noem telling an apparent falsehood about meeting with Kim, after years of ignoring Trump’s own penchant for saying oodles of bizarre and false things? (Trump has uttered several false statements specifically about Kim, in fact.)
The answer is that conservative media and the GOP can ignore and try to cover for plenty — until they decide you’ve become a problem for the red team.
Former congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was accused of multiple instances of misconduct from his college days, told multiple falsehoods about his biography and faced repeated driving and gun infractions. But his party didn’t set about taking him out in a 2022 primary until he did a podcast interview in which he claimed a fellow lawmaker invited him to an “orgy” and accused Republicans in Washington of using cocaine. Republicans expressed concern that his problems were suddenly becoming their problems.
Indicted former congressman George Santos (R-N.Y.) was allowed to stick around for months despite his abundant legal and ethical problems and telling an even more remarkable number of lies about his own bio. A big apparent reason for his ultimate expulsion: Multiple vulnerable New York Republicans worried he would compromise their own reelections.
Further back, Republicans put up with former congressman Steve King’s (R-Iowa) controversial and even racist remarks for years before deciding to turn against him in 2019 for well-publicized remarks about white nationalism to the New York Times. An Iowa GOP strategist explained at the time that King had become “the largest in-kind contribution Nancy Pelosi’s received. … It’s untenable for our candidates to have to answer for someone like that.”
And more recently, we’ve seen some on the right begin to cast a more skeptical eye on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). This is not because she has espoused bizarre conspiracy theories or unapologetically appeared at a conference hosted by a white nationalist, but because they appear to worry that her attempted ouster of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and her Russia apologia are hurting the party’s 2024 prospects.
“She is dragging our brand down,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said two weeks ago. “She — not the Democrats — are the biggest risk to us getting back to a majority.”
If you look closely at Noem’s increasingly contentious interviews on conservative media, you’ll see an acknowledgment that this is really about the same thing.
It seems to be sending a signal that it would be better for all involved for Noem to fade away, and certainly that Trump should think twice about putting her on the ticket.
“I’m not sure anybody supports you on shooting the dog,” Varney told Noem, adding: “We’ve been consumed with emails saying, ‘I won’t vote for this person. I won’t vote for Trump if he puts her in the vice-presidential spot.’ ”
Newsmax host Rob Finnerty had said an hour earlier: “I’m not deliberately trying to be adversarial. I just — Donald Trump winning in November is very important.”
