South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who recently came under fire for shooting her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, suggested in an interview Sunday that President Biden’s dog, Commander, should have suffered a similar fate.
The commander bit Secret Service employees at least two dozen times between October 2022 and June 2023, according to documents released in February.
Noem wrote in her upcoming book, “No Going Back,” that if she ever reached the White House, she would be different from Biden in the way she dealt with the Commander, who was eventually banned from the White House grounds. “Commander, say hello to Cricket,” she wrote.
“Well, first of all, Joe Biden’s dog attacked 24 Secret Service people,” Noem said Sunday in an interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” when asked about the ticket. “So how many people are enough to be attacked and dangerously injured before you make a decision about a dog and what to do with it?”
“This is an issue for which the president should be held accountable,” she added, before moderator Margaret Brennan interrupted, asking if she was saying the commander should be shot.
Noem did not pause to acknowledge the question, but instead continued, saying, “What the president is accountable for is, what is — what is the number?”
Noem, seen as a possible vice presidential pick for former President Trump’s 2024 ticket, faced intense backlash over an anecdote in her soon-to-be-released memoir that detailed an incident in which Noem described murder of his family dog for about 20 years.
She defended the move as “not a pleasant job” but said it “had to be done.” She called the dog “extremely dangerous.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
