Donald Trump Welcomes Kristi Noem Back Into Fold Post-Puppy Killing Scandal

It turns out killing your puppy—and admitting to it unprompted—isn’t total political suicide.

Kristi Noem will headline a town hall organized by Donald Trump’s team this weekend, marking her first notable appearance on the campaign trail since she detailed how she killed her 14-month-old wirehair pointer, Cricket.

Noem, 52, will travel to Savannah, Georgia, on Saturday to headline the policy event. It appears to be a fairly low-stakes campaign stop to welcome Noem back into the fold, taking place at 3 p.m. on a busy college football Saturday in the heart of the deep south. The free event will be at the Charles H. Morris Center, which has a seated capacity of 300 people.

Few details on the event have been released beyond its name, “Team Trump’s Agenda 47 Policy Tour featuring Governor Kristi Noem in Savannah, Georgia.”

Brian Snyder/Reuters

Noem posted to X on Monday that she was traveling to Philadelphia to attend Tuesday night’s debate between Trump and Kamala Harris.

“Tomorrow’s debate is a crucial moment for our nation,” she said. “We’ll hear two opposite visions for our country. President Trump will share his vision of strength and prosperity—versus Kamala’s radical Marxism. I will be at the debate to support [Trump].”

Noem largely fell out of the political limelight in May after excerpts of her second autobiography, No Going Back, went viral and were widely scrutinized. She wrote that she killed her puppy, Cricket, after he had a rough go at pheasant hunting and killed some chickens in the same day.

Noem wrote that she “hated that dog” and that it was “less than worthless,” so she shot him dead in a gravel pit.

She also wrote that, minutes later, she also shot dead her family’s goat—with two shots, after the first didn’t do the trick—who was “nasty and mean” and loved to chase her three children.

The self-induced scandal—along with a blatant lie that she’d met Kim Jong Un, which was also in her book—killed all momentum Noem was gaining in Trump’s veepstakes, which ultimately ended with JD Vance being chosen.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Noem has largely laid low—by her standards, at least—since the scandal erupted. She praised Trump in a 10-minute, Day 1 speech at the RNC before the former president had made his first appearance himself.

Trump never condemned Noem’s killing of Cricket, but he did allude to the scandal a couple of times while outrage—and memes—over it were at their peak.

“She had a bad week,” he told radio hosts Clay Travis and Buck Sexton in May about the ordeal. “We all have bad weeks.”