Kristi Noem, once a contender to become the Republicans’ vice presidential nominee, has argued that people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol should be assessed individually for clemency — to minimize the chance of a repeat .
“Each of these situations has to be looked at individually,” Noem said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “What I have been very clear about is that we do not want to experience another January 6.
“Nobody in this country wants to see another day like that.”
The governor of South Dakota also offered her support to Donald Trump in his promise to grant presidential pardons to those charged or convicted in the attack on the Capitol carried out by his supporters following his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election .
The former Republican president has said he is considering pardons for about 1,186 suspects if he wins a second term in the expected November rematch with his Democratic rival Biden. He has said one of his first actions in office would be to release captured January 6 participants, whom he has described as “hostages.”
Noem said a pardon “should be based on his prerogative and his decision when he looks at those cases.”
“Each of these individuals needs to be looked at individually as far as what their role was and what happened in that situation,” Noem said.
Some political pundits were unimpressed by the argument of the winner of the 1990 South Dakota Snow Queen Festival pageant, including Public Notice’s Aaron Rupar, who wrote on X: “completely incoherent stuff from Kristi Noem on Meet the Press” .
Noem has seen her favorable opinion polls plummet since she included a passage in her book No Going Back describing her decision to fatally shoot a hunting dog that she insisted did not hunt and was a danger to her family.
The unpopularity of that admission all but ruled her out as the vice presidential choice of Trump, who he claims will attend his televised debate with Biden in Atlanta on Thursday.
Trump’s promises to announce his running mate before the November election came despite the fact that the CNN network has agreed with both campaigns that there will be no studio audience.
Noem said she had not received any paperwork from the Trump campaign that would indicate her eligibility for the job. But she said she had “conversations with the president, and I know he is the only one who will make the decisions about who will be his vice president,” a role Mike Pence held when Trump was in the Oval Office starting in 2017 . until early 2021.
When asked if it would be a mistake not to choose a woman, Noem added: “He has to choose the best person for the job. He has to choose someone who will help him win.”
Noem also argued that Trump would be an effective president despite his conviction in the criminal prosecution involving hush-money payments to adult film actor Stormy Daniels — and despite the fact that he faces criminal charges related to his efforts to overturn the results of the election of 2020 to be undone. election won by Biden.
“I believe that when Donald Trump returns to the White House and is in charge of this country, we will have incredible opportunities to show that the people of this country will be safer, that we will have law and order. back on our streets,” Noem said.
A slew of statistics point to a significant decline in violent crime over the past year under the Biden administration.
