In a galley excerpt from her upcoming book, “No Going Back,” South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem claimed to have met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un while serving as a member of the House of Representatives. However, this claim has been refuted as Kim did not leave North Korea until 2018, after the period specified by Noem. There is no evidence of any member of Congress secretly or publicly traveling to North Korea during the time Noem claimed to meet Kim.
Experts on North Korea have also questioned the validity of Noem’s claim, with some stating that it is highly unlikely that a junior member of Congress without explicit escort from the US State Department and military would meet with a leader from North Korea. Additionally, Noem referred to Kim as “president” in her account, when his formal title is “chairman.” Noem’s publisher has stated that they will be addressing the issues of conflated world leaders’ names in the book before its release.
In addition to Kim, Noem claimed to have met with other world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The controversy surrounding Noem’s claims comes shortly after she faced backlash for admitting in her book that she euthanized a 14-month-old dog named Cricket because she found it to be “untrainable” as a hunting dog.
Noem’s statements in her book have created speculation about her credibility and judgment among both Republicans and Democrats. The conflicting information and lack of evidence supporting her claims have raised questions about the accuracy of her accounts of meetings with world leaders, especially with the significant discrepancies in timing and details. Noem’s assertion of meeting with Kim Jong Un, in particular, has been widely disputed by experts and observers of North Korea.
Despite the controversy surrounding her claims, Noem’s spokesperson initially stated that she would not be discussing the details of her meetings with world leaders and suggested that if she wanted to share them, she would have included them in the book. Later, it was announced that the publisher would address the issues of conflated world leaders’ names before the book’s release. The backlash Noem has faced from her claims about meeting Kim Jong Un and euthanizing her dog Cricket have damaged her reputation and raised doubts about her trustworthiness.
