Overview
- The Governor Newsom Press Office shared on X an illustration of a woman pointing a gun at a dog, captioned, “Kristi Noem’s Dog Obedience School: She’ll Treat Them As Good As She Treats Brown People.”
- After users criticized the image as making light of animal cruelty, the account replied, “dude, she’s a self-admitted puppy-killer.”
- The post refers to Noem’s 2024 book, No Going Back, in which she wrote that she shot her family dog, Cricket, describing the animal as “untrainable” and “less than worthless” after it attacked a neighbor’s chickens.
- Noem has defended the episode in interviews, saying in September that she loves animals and that the situation was difficult.
- The Independent reports this is part of a pattern in which Newsom’s team taunts Trump administration figures over National Guard deployments and has labeled Noem “Kosplay Kristi” for frequent ICE facility photo ops.