“I hated this dog,” Noem wrote, referring to her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer.

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Donald Trump’s eldest son: How the president-elect reacted to Kristi Noem’s admission that she shot his dog dead.

The South Dakota governor, now Trump’s pick for Homeland Security Secretary, confessed in her memoir to shooting her 14-month-old wire-haired pointer Cricket two decades ago. The confession was met with shock and outrage, and many believed her hopes for being his vice president had ended.

Donald Trump Jr. recalled his father’s reaction to the shocking tale to Politico reporter Alex Isenstadt, who detailed it in his upcoming book Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump’s Return to Power.

“That’s not good at all,” Donald Trump reportedly told his son, according to the New York Post, which obtained a copy of the book.

“Even you wouldn’t kill a dog, and you kill everything,” the 78-year-old Republican said, referring to his son’s common adventures.

In her book No Going Back, Noem wrote: “I hated that dog.” She added that Cricket was “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem continued, “I knew I had to put her down. ” He admitted that “it wasn’t a delightful job. . . it had to be done. “

The dog murder story emerged as Trump pondered his selection of vice presidential candidate; Noem even thought about being on his short list, though he supposedly “set it aside” long before the story of the dog’s murder came to light.

Rumors of an affair between Noem and Corey Lewandowski, the director of Trump’s 2016 crusade, have not helped the governor’s chances of joining the 2024 Republican ticket, Isenstadt wrote.

Noem has denied the alleged affair.

In addition to the romance rumors, the Republican candidate at the time expressed some apprehension about opting for Noem as his running mate. The duo met at Mar-a-Lago in February 2024, according to the book.

They discussed their state’s abortion ban, one of the strictest in the country, which stipulates that the exception to the ban is to save the life of the pregnant person.

“Trump came away inspired through Noem,” Isenstadt wrote, “but remained concerned about how his state’s legislation would be used against her through Democrats. “

In response to the claims in the book, a spokesperson for Noem said: “This wouldn’t be the first time that [the author] reported fake conversations that Governor Noem never had … As I have said many times, the allegation of an affair is completely false. She never had conversations with President Trump or his team about a nonexistent affair. I look forward to seeing [the] book on the ‘fiction’ shelves.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, also responded to the allegations in the upcoming book. “President Trump won a historic victory because he laid out an ambitious vision for this country after four disastrous years of Joe Biden,” he said. “We will not dignify those types of salacious, unverified stories that have nothing to do with helping the American people or making America great again. »

The Independent has contacted representatives for Lewandowski, Noem and Trump for comment.

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