'No one should be surprised Kristi Noem is vile - this is a woman who shot her own dog'
Trump
chose to surround himself with. People like
Kristi Noem
.
Kristi Noem just told legal U.S. citizens — people who have every right to be here —
to 'go home' if they were afraid of getting arrested by ICE
. These are individuals who hadn't broken any laws. But that didn't matter to Noem. In her view, if you're scared, you must be guilty.
Even worse, she lumped legal migrants in with gang members, drug cartels, and even terrorists.
Her actual words
: 'Go home before you get picked up… don't hang out with gang members, cartel members. Don't be part of a terrorist organization. If you're a good person, you shouldn't be breaking our laws; you should self-deport. If they self-deport, we'll give them a plane ticket.'
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It was a dangerous message, cloaked in racism and contempt. Maybe Noem didn't realize how vile her words sounded, but I did.
KERRVILLE, TEXAS - JULY 11: Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem participates in a round table event with President Donald Trump at the Hill Country Youth Event Center to discuss last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. Trump traveled to Texas one week after flash flooding along the Guadalupe River swept through cities, mobile home parks and summer camps, killing 120 people. Ninety-six of those killed were in Kerr County, where the toll includes at least 36 children. (Photo by)
For a second, I was stunned. But only for a second. Then I remembered exactly who Kristi Noem is. She's the same woman who proudly bragged in her memoir about shooting and killing her 14-month-old dog and her goat on the same day.
In what she framed as an example of her willingness to do whatever it takes—no matter how 'difficult, messy, or ugly'—Kristi Noem admitted in her memoir that she shot and killed her own 14-month-old dog.
But this wasn't an act of grit or responsibility, instead, a disturbing display of cruelty, wrapped in political theater and justified with warped notions of loyalty and leadership.
In her book No Going Back: The Truth on What's Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, Noem recounted her brief ownership of a young female dog named Cricket.
Originally intended to be trained as a hunting dog, Cricket was, by Noem's own account, 'untrainable'. She said she 'hated' Cricket.
Noem described an early hunting outing where the puppy—barely over a year old and with no formal training—acted like a typical, energetic dog: chasing birds, running around, and enjoying the outdoors.
Instead of recognizing this behavior as normal, Noem cast Cricket as a menace, writing that she was 'out of her mind with excitement,' as if joy in a dog were something to be punished.
Later, after Cricket killed some chickens, Noem described the dog as 'the picture of pure joy'—again portraying an untrained animal behaving instinctively as a bloodthirsty predator.
She even called the young dog a 'trained assassin,' a grotesque exaggeration for a puppy who had never stood a chance under her care.
Noem goes on to claim that Cricket tried to bite her and labelled the dog 'dangerous' and 'worthless.' Her conclusion? The dog had to die.
She said she took Cricket to a gravel pit and shot her. 'It had to be done,' she wrote—coldly, without remorse.
But the story doesn't end there.
Noem then shared how she also killed a male goat that belonged to her family. Her reasoning? The goat smelled bad, chased her children, and ruined their clothes.
Rather than rehome or contain the animal, Noem dragged it to the same gravel pit and shot it. When the goat survived the first shot, she went back to her truck, grabbed another shell, and finished the job.
A nearby construction crew witnessed the entire scene—Noem killing two animals in cold blood, then calmly greeting her children as they came home from school.
Her daughter, unaware of what had just happened, looked around and asked, 'Hey, where's Cricket?'
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Noem ended the story with a chilling reflection: 'I guess if I were a better politician I wouldn't tell the story here.'
She seems to believe this gruesome anecdote proves her toughness. Instead, it exposes something far more troubling—her comfort with violence, her disregard for life, and her eagerness to turn cruelty into a political virtue.
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