Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s new book isn’t even out yet and it’s already caused multiple controversies. The latest is swirling around an apparently false claim that she met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders,” said Noem in her upcoming book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, (which is set to come out on May 7) as quoted by POLITICO. “I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”
However, that outlet noted that Noem did not in fact meet with Kim. Her spokesman, Ian Fury provided statements cited by both POLITICO and ABC News.
“We’ve been made aware that the publisher will be addressing conflated world leaders’ names in the book before it is released,” said Fury in the POLITICO statement.
“Kim Jong Un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been,” said the statement provided to ABC.
Noem has been identified as a potential vice president pick for former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP 2024 presidential candidate. He did meet with Kim Jong Un, and has claimed that he helped the world avert a “nuclear holocaust” through his dealings with North Korea.
In a sample of Noem’s book obtained by the ABC, Noem includes a list of world leaders she claims she met. She said they include: “Chinese president Xi Jingping, the king and princes of Saudi Arabia, North Korean president Kim Jong Un, the king of Jordan, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,” and more. Fury told ABC there will be corrections to “two small errors” in all future editions before the book is released next week.
The other “error” is related to an anecdote Noem included about former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Noem said she had a conversation with Haley in 2021 during which she felt like the other woman was threatening her.
“Nikki has long called and written notes supporting other women when they go through challenging times,” said Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton, per POLITICO. “She called Governor Noem in 2020 to encourage her when she was criticized for keeping her state open during COVID. How she would twist that into a threat is just plain weird.”
Denton said she was “befuddled” at Noem’s story. Fury also “acknowledged that the timeline of the Haley conversation is muddled,” according to ABC.
There’s also a third potential factual error in the book, per the Dakota Scout.
“Last year as governor, she says she canceled a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron,” the outlet reported. “But neither account has been verified by congressional travel documents or outside sources reviewed by The Dakota Scout. And The Scout confirmed with the French president’s office that Macron never had a meeting scheduled with Noem.”
Audacy covered a separate controversy related to Noem’s new book last week – a passage of the book, where the governor describes killing a dog that she “hated.” She defended her actions in an X post, saying that “tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm.”