Do you know who Kristi Noem is? Neither did I, until this morning. She's the Republican governor of South Dakota and now she's the one who may be trying to shove Mike Pence aside. How? With some serious sucking up to Donald.
In an article titled How Kristi Noem, Mt. Rushmore and Trump Fueled Speculation About Pence’s Job, and sub-titled After Ms. Noem, the South Dakota governor, flew to Washington on Air Force One, speculation about her ambitions ensued. She made a second trip to smooth things over with Mike Pence, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman tell an intriguing story:
WASHINGTON — Since the first days after she was elected governor of South Dakota in 2018, Kristi Noem had been working to ensure that President Trump would come to Mount Rushmore for a fireworks-filled July 4 extravaganza.
After all, the president had told her in the Oval Office that he aspired to have his image etched on the monument. And last year, a White House aide reached out to the governor’s office with a question, according to a Republican official familiar with the conversation: What’s the process to add additional presidents to Mount Rushmore?
So last month, when the president arrived in the Black Hills for the star-spangled spectacle he had pined for, Ms. Noem made the most of it.
Introducing Mr. Trump against the floodlit backdrop of his carved predecessors, the governor played to the president’s craving for adulation by noting that in just three days more than 125,000 people had signed up for only 7,500 seats; she likened him to Theodore Roosevelt, a leader who “braves the dangers of the arena”; and she mimicked the president’s rhetoric by scorning protesters who she said were seeking to discredit the country’s founders.
In private, the efforts to charm Mr. Trump were more pointed, according to a person familiar with the episode: Ms. Noem greeted him with a four-foot replica of Mount Rushmore that included a fifth presidential likeness: his.
But less than three weeks later, Ms. Noem came to the White House with far less fanfare — to meet not with Mr. Trump, but with Vice President Mike Pence. Word had circulated through the Trump administration that she was ingratiating herself with the president, fueling suspicions that there might have been a discussion about her serving as his running mate in November. Ms. Noem assured Mr. Pence that she wanted to help the ticket however she could, according to an official present.
She never stated it directly, but the vice president found her message clear: She was not after his job.
There is no indication Mr. Trump wants to replace Mr. Pence. Mr. Trump last month told Fox News that he’s sticking with Mr. Pence, whom he called a “friend.”
Yet with polls showing the president trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, and Republicans at risk of being shut out of power in Congress, a host of party leaders have begun eyeing the future, maneuvering around a mercurial president.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas was in New Hampshire late last month, Senator Rick Scott of Florida is angling to take over the Senate Republican campaign arm to cultivate donors, and Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming is defending Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s leading expert on infectious disease, while separating herself from Mr. Trump on some national security issues.
At the same time, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is attempting to shore up his conservative credentials by pushing a hard line on China, and Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky are attempting to reclaim their standing as fiscal hawks by loudly opposing additional spending on coronavirus relief.
Drawing less attention, but working equally hard to burnish her national profile, is Ms. Noem. The governor, 48, has installed a TV studio in her state capitol, become a Fox News regular and started taking advice from Mr. Trump’s former 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who still has the president’s ear.
Next month, she’ll address a county Republican dinner in Iowa.
“There seems like there might be some interest on her part — it certainly gets noticed,” Jon Hansen, a Republican state representative in South Dakota, said of Ms. Noem’s positioning for national office.
Her efforts have paid off, as evidenced by the news-driving celebration at Mount Rushmore. Yet Ms. Noem’s attempts to raise her profile have not been without complications. And they illustrate the risks in political maneuvering with a president who has little restraint when it comes to confidentiality, and a White House that shares his obsession about, and antenna for, palace intrigue.
To the surprise of some of her own advisers, Ms. Noem flew with Mr. Trump to Washington on Air Force One late in the evening after his Mount Rushmore speech. Joined by Mr. Lewandowski, she and the president spoke for over an hour privately during the flight — a fact that Mr. Trump and some of his aides soon shared with other Republicans, according to officials familiar with his disclosure.
An aide to Ms. Noem, Maggie Seidel, said she did not raise the vice presidency with Mr. Trump. Mr. Lewandowski, who is a paid adviser to the Pence-aligned Great America PAC, also denied that he or the governor ever raised the subject of replacing Mr. Pence on the ticket.
Mr. Lewandowski, in a brief interview, described Ms. Noem as a star who “has a huge future in Republican politics.”
A White House official laughed at the notion that Mr. Trump is open to replacing Mr. Pence, a move that, among other things, would exude desperation. And regarding the phone call about adding the president’s image to Mt. Rushmore, the official noted that it is a federal, not state, monument.
Still, word of the Air Force One conversation quickly reached White House officials, including those in Mr. Pence’s office.
A short time later, Ms. Noem was jetting back to the capital, this time in less grand fashion, after requesting a meeting with Mr. Pence.
White House aides kept Ms. Noem from meeting with Mr. Trump again, one person familiar with the planning said. But Mr. Pence’s office gladly put his session with the governor on his public schedule and the vice president tweeted about it afterward. Ms. Noem’s aides, hoping to tamp down questions about the second trip, emphasized that she had also met with officials from the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies while she was in the capital.
One official close to the vice president said that Ms. Noem did not discuss her Air Force One flight with Mr. Pence but used the conversation to say she wanted to help the campaign however she could. The official suggested that the vice president’s team has an opportunity for her in mind: helping Mr. Pence prepare to debate whichever woman Mr. Biden selects as his running mate.
Yet one senior Trump adviser has recently lamented to others that Mr. Trump could have boosted his re-election campaign had he replaced Mr. Pence with a woman, according to people familiar with the conversations. One potential candidate mentioned was Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador who is close to the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
However, Mr. Pence has been an unstinting ally of Mr. Trump, and the vice president retains a number of allies in the president’s orbit.
“I think we’ll win South Dakota either way,” Brian Ballard, a lobbyist close to Mr. Trump, said.
That these kinds of speculative conversations about a different running mate have taken place at all, though, illustrates the depth of frustration in Mr. Trump’s inner circle over his political fortunes.With early voting starting in less than two months in some states, the president’s ineffectual response to the coronavirus has alienated voters and made the election primarily a referendum on him.
Speculation has long lingered in Republican circles that Mr. Trump could swap out Mr. Pence for Ms. Haley, partly because of the president’s own musings about it.
For a time in 2018, Mr. Trump queried people about Mr. Pence’s loyalty. And officials in the administration, including some close to Mr. Pence, said they believed that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump were angling to replace him with Ms. Haley.
In his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” the former national security adviser John R. Bolton recounts how, flying to Iraq on Christmas night in 2018, the president asked him for his opinion on jettisoning Mr. Pence.
Ms. Noem, the daughter of a rancher who took over her family’s property after her father died, has insisted that she has little appetite to return to Washington, where she served as South Dakota’s sole House member for eight years before becoming governor.
“She’s focused on being the governor of South Dakota,” said Ms. Seidel, her senior adviser.
The president’s transition team contacted her about interviewing for a cabinet post after the 2016 election, but she was already planning to run for governor then. Some of her allies believe she’d also be open to the interior or agricultural secretary roles in a second Trump term ahead of the 2024 race.
Ms. Noem’s poll numbers have increased after a difficult first year in office. But to some of her aides, Mr. Lewandowski, a hard-charging New Englander, has been a disruptive presence in Pierre, South Dakota’s small state capital. He appeared as a guest speaker at one luncheon with cabinet officials and pressed the governor’s appointees to make a more aggressive case for her, irritating the state officials, according to a person briefed on the events.
The governor is now on her third chief of staff because the last one, Joshua Shields, left in part because of the increased role of Mr. Lewandowski, according to South Dakota Republicans.
Mr. Lewandowski has sought opportunities that could benefit both Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem. He recently discussed with the president’s advisers sending Mr. Trump to the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D., where there would be a big crowd and where the two might have appeared together again; Mr. Trump’s aides did not want him in the same politically safe state twice in two months.
Ms. Noem has been a steadfast ally of Mr. Trump and has mirrored his handling of the virus.
She has pushed for schools to reopen for in-person classes, denounced mask mandates and had South Dakota participate in a study on hydroxychloroquine, the malaria treatment Mr. Trump has trumpeted.
It was her star turn at Mount Rushmore, though, that has gotten Republicans talking and been a boon to South Dakota tourism, the state’s second-largest industry.
Recognizing the president’s immense interest in the monument, Ms. Noem worked with his Interior Department to ensure there would be fireworks for the celebration, a longstanding priority for Mr. Trump. There had been no fireworks there for the previous decade because of environmental and fire-risk concerns.
In the weeks leading up to the event, Ms. Noem went on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News to make clear she was expecting to “have a large event” for the president and would not require social distancing or masks.
Then, as the president sat watching her remarks in a bunting-wrapped box just offstage, she praised America as a place where someone who was “just a farm kid” could become “the first female governor of South Dakota.” (This is the article in its entirety.)
Palin told ABC that the woman who 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden picks to be his running mate "has really got to be strong and be vocal when it comes to those trying to shape them, mold them, tell them what to say," referencing campaign aides who advise politicians on everything from policy to clothes.
"That candidate had better be strong and stand up for what she knows is right," Palin said.
As for herself, Palin said she would run for office again "in a heartbeat" and that she planned to run for an elected position again at some point.
She said she would take more control of her public image the next time around, however.
"I would've gone rogue a lot earlier," she said, when addressing what she would do differently in a future campaign. "I would've fought back against those who were running the campaign who, you know, weren't in touch with the American people and what the American people wanted."
She continued: "I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and I want to do it again. I want to be back in there in public service." (Read the entire article here.)
Her efforts have paid off, as evidenced by the news-driving celebration at Mount Rushmore. Yet Ms. Noem’s attempts to raise her profile have not been without complications. And they illustrate the risks in political maneuvering with a president who has little restraint when it comes to confidentiality, and a White House that shares his obsession about, and antenna for, palace intrigue.
To the surprise of some of her own advisers, Ms. Noem flew with Mr. Trump to Washington on Air Force One late in the evening after his Mount Rushmore speech. Joined by Mr. Lewandowski, she and the president spoke for over an hour privately during the flight — a fact that Mr. Trump and some of his aides soon shared with other Republicans, according to officials familiar with his disclosure.
An aide to Ms. Noem, Maggie Seidel, said she did not raise the vice presidency with Mr. Trump. Mr. Lewandowski, who is a paid adviser to the Pence-aligned Great America PAC, also denied that he or the governor ever raised the subject of replacing Mr. Pence on the ticket.
Mr. Lewandowski, in a brief interview, described Ms. Noem as a star who “has a huge future in Republican politics.”
A White House official laughed at the notion that Mr. Trump is open to replacing Mr. Pence, a move that, among other things, would exude desperation. And regarding the phone call about adding the president’s image to Mt. Rushmore, the official noted that it is a federal, not state, monument.
Still, word of the Air Force One conversation quickly reached White House officials, including those in Mr. Pence’s office.
A short time later, Ms. Noem was jetting back to the capital, this time in less grand fashion, after requesting a meeting with Mr. Pence.
White House aides kept Ms. Noem from meeting with Mr. Trump again, one person familiar with the planning said. But Mr. Pence’s office gladly put his session with the governor on his public schedule and the vice president tweeted about it afterward. Ms. Noem’s aides, hoping to tamp down questions about the second trip, emphasized that she had also met with officials from the Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies while she was in the capital.
One official close to the vice president said that Ms. Noem did not discuss her Air Force One flight with Mr. Pence but used the conversation to say she wanted to help the campaign however she could. The official suggested that the vice president’s team has an opportunity for her in mind: helping Mr. Pence prepare to debate whichever woman Mr. Biden selects as his running mate.
Yet one senior Trump adviser has recently lamented to others that Mr. Trump could have boosted his re-election campaign had he replaced Mr. Pence with a woman, according to people familiar with the conversations. One potential candidate mentioned was Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador who is close to the president’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
However, Mr. Pence has been an unstinting ally of Mr. Trump, and the vice president retains a number of allies in the president’s orbit.
“I think we’ll win South Dakota either way,” Brian Ballard, a lobbyist close to Mr. Trump, said.
That these kinds of speculative conversations about a different running mate have taken place at all, though, illustrates the depth of frustration in Mr. Trump’s inner circle over his political fortunes.With early voting starting in less than two months in some states, the president’s ineffectual response to the coronavirus has alienated voters and made the election primarily a referendum on him.
Speculation has long lingered in Republican circles that Mr. Trump could swap out Mr. Pence for Ms. Haley, partly because of the president’s own musings about it.
For a time in 2018, Mr. Trump queried people about Mr. Pence’s loyalty. And officials in the administration, including some close to Mr. Pence, said they believed that Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump were angling to replace him with Ms. Haley.
In his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” the former national security adviser John R. Bolton recounts how, flying to Iraq on Christmas night in 2018, the president asked him for his opinion on jettisoning Mr. Pence.
Ms. Noem, the daughter of a rancher who took over her family’s property after her father died, has insisted that she has little appetite to return to Washington, where she served as South Dakota’s sole House member for eight years before becoming governor.
“She’s focused on being the governor of South Dakota,” said Ms. Seidel, her senior adviser.
The president’s transition team contacted her about interviewing for a cabinet post after the 2016 election, but she was already planning to run for governor then. Some of her allies believe she’d also be open to the interior or agricultural secretary roles in a second Trump term ahead of the 2024 race.
Ms. Noem’s poll numbers have increased after a difficult first year in office. But to some of her aides, Mr. Lewandowski, a hard-charging New Englander, has been a disruptive presence in Pierre, South Dakota’s small state capital. He appeared as a guest speaker at one luncheon with cabinet officials and pressed the governor’s appointees to make a more aggressive case for her, irritating the state officials, according to a person briefed on the events.
The governor is now on her third chief of staff because the last one, Joshua Shields, left in part because of the increased role of Mr. Lewandowski, according to South Dakota Republicans.
Mr. Lewandowski has sought opportunities that could benefit both Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem. He recently discussed with the president’s advisers sending Mr. Trump to the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D., where there would be a big crowd and where the two might have appeared together again; Mr. Trump’s aides did not want him in the same politically safe state twice in two months.
Ms. Noem has been a steadfast ally of Mr. Trump and has mirrored his handling of the virus.
She has pushed for schools to reopen for in-person classes, denounced mask mandates and had South Dakota participate in a study on hydroxychloroquine, the malaria treatment Mr. Trump has trumpeted.
It was her star turn at Mount Rushmore, though, that has gotten Republicans talking and been a boon to South Dakota tourism, the state’s second-largest industry.
Recognizing the president’s immense interest in the monument, Ms. Noem worked with his Interior Department to ensure there would be fireworks for the celebration, a longstanding priority for Mr. Trump. There had been no fireworks there for the previous decade because of environmental and fire-risk concerns.
In the weeks leading up to the event, Ms. Noem went on Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News to make clear she was expecting to “have a large event” for the president and would not require social distancing or masks.
Then, as the president sat watching her remarks in a bunting-wrapped box just offstage, she praised America as a place where someone who was “just a farm kid” could become “the first female governor of South Dakota.” (This is the article in its entirety.)
I'm trying to decide which part of this is the most annoying, disgusting and/or pathetic:
- A woman smart enough to get elected governor is taking advice from Corey Lewandowski
- The Republican belief that putting a woman on the ticket will get women who don't like Donald to vote for him
- Donald's dream of seeing his face on Mt. Rushmore
Now let's think about Governor Noem. A recently-elected female governor in a large, western state with a small population. The first female governor of that state and one of the youngest governors in the country. An ambitious woman with national-level dreams. Who does that remind you of? Our old friend Sarah Palin, of course.
I think of Sarah every four years as we wait to hear who's been picked to run for VP. Ever since 2008, avoiding John McCain's catastrophic mistake has been Job One for every presidential candidate. I also assume that it's not just the person doing the picking who doesn't want to repeat the Palin disaster. Presumably everyone who's interviewing for the job is also determined to do it a hell of a lot better than Sarah Palin was able to do. Sarah was given a rare opportunity, one that probably every politician in America would kill for, and she squandered it. She wasn't ready in 2008, but she was only 44, young for a governor. She had political skills and many, many Republicans thought she had potential for the future and wanted her to succeed.
So what happened? Where is she now? Twelve years after her star turn as the Republican VP candidate, followed by a couple of years in which she was the It Girl Of All It Girls, Palin, who even now is only 56 years old, is completely out of politics, and as far as I can tell, isn't doing much of anything. She quit her governorship without completing a single term and never ran for office again. She wrote a few books. She appeared on several reality TV shows, including most recently something called The Masked Singer. She has seven grandchildren. She's divorced. What's next? Believe it or not, in a recent interview with ABC News, she said that she's thinking of running for something again. Here's how People reported the story:
"That candidate had better be strong and stand up for what she knows is right," Palin said.
As for herself, Palin said she would run for office again "in a heartbeat" and that she planned to run for an elected position again at some point.
She said she would take more control of her public image the next time around, however.
"I would've gone rogue a lot earlier," she said, when addressing what she would do differently in a future campaign. "I would've fought back against those who were running the campaign who, you know, weren't in touch with the American people and what the American people wanted."
She continued: "I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and I want to do it again. I want to be back in there in public service." (Read the entire article here.)
Hell will freeze over before Donald's face is carved into the mountains of South Dakota and my bet is that it'll be pretty cold before Sarah Palin runs for office again, too. (Unlike 10 years ago, when every little thing Sarah said got wall-to-wall coverage, her interview with ABC was almost invisible, although ABC could run it again as part of their coverage of Joe Biden's VP pick.)
Would Donald dump Pence for Kristi Noem or Nikki Haley? Unlikely, but nothing would surprise me.
Update:
Update #2:
And, by-the-way, Donald, no, you can't have your face carved on Mt. Rushmore. The Sioux City Argus Leader explains why, other than the obvious reasons, it's not possible:
The problem is, as most South Dakotans already know, adding Trump, let alone any president, is not possible.
Maureen McGee-Ballinger, public information officer at Mount Rushmore, said workers are asked daily whether any president can be added. And for years, people have suggested Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, among others. A website – MakeRoomonRushmore.com – advocates for Obama.
"There is no more carvable space up on the sculpture," McGee-Ballinger said. "When you are looking on the sculpture, it appears there might be some space on the left next to Washington or right next to Lincoln. You are either looking at the rock that is beyond the sculpture (on the right), which is an optical illusion, or on the left, that is not carvable."
A brief history lesson: Gutzon Borglum originally intended to put Thomas Jefferson first in the lineup. Washington had already been started in his current spot, but when work commenced on Jefferson, it was determined the rock wasn't usable. Washington remained, but Jefferson had to move.
Lincoln had to be relocated, as well, leaving behind another segment of worked rock. An inscription in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase was scrapped. (Read the entire article here.)
Update #3 on Thursday, August 20. I don't know how credible reporter Helen Kennedy is, but I saw her tweet this morning and decided to put it here:
Will Donald kick Mike Pence to the curb next week? Stay tuned.
Would Donald dump Pence for Kristi Noem or Nikki Haley? Unlikely, but nothing would surprise me.
Update:
Meanwhile, on #Russia's state TV. pic.twitter.com/9BJcy50uX7— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 4, 2020
Update #2:
President Coolidge dedicates site of Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, today 1927, says Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, T.R. earned their places on monument by “following the truth”: pic.twitter.com/wNdlImgbOj— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 10, 2020
And, by-the-way, Donald, no, you can't have your face carved on Mt. Rushmore. The Sioux City Argus Leader explains why, other than the obvious reasons, it's not possible:
The problem is, as most South Dakotans already know, adding Trump, let alone any president, is not possible.
Maureen McGee-Ballinger, public information officer at Mount Rushmore, said workers are asked daily whether any president can be added. And for years, people have suggested Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, among others. A website – MakeRoomonRushmore.com – advocates for Obama.
"There is no more carvable space up on the sculpture," McGee-Ballinger said. "When you are looking on the sculpture, it appears there might be some space on the left next to Washington or right next to Lincoln. You are either looking at the rock that is beyond the sculpture (on the right), which is an optical illusion, or on the left, that is not carvable."
A brief history lesson: Gutzon Borglum originally intended to put Thomas Jefferson first in the lineup. Washington had already been started in his current spot, but when work commenced on Jefferson, it was determined the rock wasn't usable. Washington remained, but Jefferson had to move.
Lincoln had to be relocated, as well, leaving behind another segment of worked rock. An inscription in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase was scrapped. (Read the entire article here.)
Update #3 on Thursday, August 20. I don't know how credible reporter Helen Kennedy is, but I saw her tweet this morning and decided to put it here:
.....and my money is still on Pence getting kicked to the curb next week.— Helen Kennedy (@HelenKennedy) August 20, 2020
Will Donald kick Mike Pence to the curb next week? Stay tuned.
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