There’s no going back for South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Noem, who was widely touted as a possible VP pick for Donald Trump, appears to have scuppered her chances with the release of her new memoir, No Going Back. Noem had already raised eyebrows with her revelation that she had shot and killed her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket, for being overly rambunctious.

Now comes the report that Noem isn’t just trigger-happy, but also is something of a fabulist. Noem claims that she met the man that National Interest executive editor and North Korea expert Harry J. Kazianis likes to call the portly pariah of Pyongyang. Yes, you heard that right. Mr. Big. None other than North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

In her book, Noem explains that she encountered the despot during her service in Congress. “Through my tenure on the House Armed Services Committee,” she stated, “I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders. I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”

Whether Kim would have underestimated a woman who has the capacity to blow away the family pet is an open question that will probably never be resolved—the problem being that Noem never actually met him in the first place. How could he have a clue about her if he never met Noem? Ian Fury, Noem’s spokesman acknowledged, “We’ve been made ware that the publisher will be addressing conflated world leaders’ names in the book before it is released.” Conflated is a fancy term for admitting that Noem concocted the episode to bolster her foreign policy bona fides.

Nor is this all. Apparently, Noem also recounts a conversation with former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley (whom she disparages as a “lone wolf” for failing to stick up for Donald Trump for his actions on January 6) that she interpreted as a threat. “It was clear that she wanted me to know that there was only room for one Republican woman in the spotlight,” Noem says. The Haley camp says Noem’s account is barking up the wrong tree.

Some Republicans are starting to back away from Noem. In Colorado, Noem was supposed to headline a fundraiser for Jefferson County Republicans on Saturday, where she would "share her perspective" on the animal killings, but a Jeffco Republicans Facebook indicated that they got cold feet about hosting her.

California Republicans, however, are standing their ground. Their response to Noem’s execution of her dog Cricket is crickets. Noem will be a keynote speaker at the party’s convention in Burlingame in mid-May. According to Politico, tickets to a Saturday luncheon with Noem will be $175 and anyone who splurges will receive a private photo-op with her for $300.

Can Noem make a comeback? Trump has his eye on a variety of candidates for the VP slot, ranging from Senator J.D. Vance to Tim Scott. Today, numerous aspirants, including Noem, will attend a Republican donor retreat in Palm Beach at the Four Seasons Hotel to vie for the post, with a lunch to follow at Mar-a-Lago on Satruday, where Trump himself will speak. But don’t expect to hear much from Noem. For now, she remains in the doghouse.

About the Author

Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest and is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the one hundred notable books of the year by The New York Times. He is the author of America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.

Image Credit: Gage Skidmore.