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It looks like Kristi Noem’s MAGA makeover was for naught!
The South Dakota governor, who’s refashioned her appearance to play the potential role of Trump’s #2, appears to be out of the running. Trump is trying to moderate his message on abortion, and Noem is an extremist on the issue.
On CNN this week, Noem defended South Dakota’s stringent abortion ban, which doesn’t include exceptions for rape and incest.
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“I just don’t believe a tragedy should perpetuate another tragedy,” she said. “I believe in taking care of mothers that are in a crisis situation and that we should be walking alongside them, giving them all the information and the best information they can make before they have to be put in a situation where an abortion is the only option that they have.”
Yeah… that’s not going to work. Sorry, Kristi!
Despite claiming credit for ending Roe, Trump is trying to distance himself from the myriad of abortion bans in red states. Pro-choice measures have won in every election since Roe was overturned, and voters in a dozen states could vote on abortion rights in November. That includes battleground states such as Arizona, which is on the cusp of implementing a total ban from the Civil War era.
In response, Trump is reportedly looking for running mates without medieval views on the matter. Noem is one of the candidates with the biggest red flags, according to NBC News.
Puck now reports that Trump has removed abortion extremists from his list entirely, including Noem.
The devastating revelation might explain why Noem went all-in on abortion bans during her recent CNN appearance. There’s no longer any reason to play a role.
And man, Noem has been performing for a long time! Her campaign to become Trump’s #2 dates back to last spring, when she launched a whistleblower hotline for people to report any suspected “wokeness” happening at colleges. The hotline, which was predictably disastrous, was one of Noem’s many attacks against LGBTQ+ people.
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Since assuming office in 2019, Noem has banned gender-affirming care for minors and banned drag shows. She was recently ordered to pay a transgender advocacy group $300,000 for wrongfully terminating a contract with the organization.
But her extreme rhetoric isn’t limited to LGBTQ+ rights or abortion. Immigration is one of her themes as well. Noem has linked tribal leaders in her home state to Mexican drug cartels.
As a result, four Four Native American tripes have banned Noem, meaning she’s unable to set foot on 15% of the land in South Dakota. Tough break!
Facing land bans, Noem fled to Texas last month…for a dental operation. She recorded an off-putting infomercial for Smile Texas, a dentist’s office located in the Lone Star State.
“When they showed my new teeth, I hugged Dr. Davis, and thanked him, and just started to cry,” she said in the nearly five-minute video shared to social media in March.
Noem’s new teeth further fueled speculation she’s trying to look like Trump’s MAGA dream girl (ew). On a recent episode of Daily Beast‘s “The New Abnormal Podcast,” co-host Andy Levy posed the very theory.
“Kristi Noem is going through all these makeovers,” he said. “She’s got the new teeth, she’s got the new hair… she’s looking more and more like a Trump family member every day.”
New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman has made a similar observation. She chronicled Noem’s changing looks over the years, from a power bob-wearing congresswoman to a wannabe Miss America:
After Mr. Trump won the presidency and the MAGA movement took off, Ms. Noem adopted a new look. Her hair got longer and longer, with tousled waves kissed by the curling iron, her part moved to the center. She began to resemble a doppelgänger for Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée. Or a dark-haired version of Lara Trump, Eric Trump’s wife and the new co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
As Friedman points out, Noem has been undergoing her transformation for a long time… or at least as long she’s been involved with Corey Lewandowski!
The gay-hating governor has been linked to the Trump stooge since late 2021, when the right-wing gossip site American Greatness claimed their relationship was an “open secret” among GOP insiders. At the time, Lewandowski was one of Noem’s top advisors, and they traveled the country together.
Noem denied the affair, and professed love for her husband, Bryan. “I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together,” she posted on social media.
Noem dropped Lewandowski as an advisor after he was accused of making unwanted advances toward a female Trump donor at a Las Vegas charity event. But they were back together months later, once again traveling with one another to political events.
This past November, Noem traveled to a right-wing conference in Paris with Lewandowski. Leading up to their trip, the New York Post quoted four sources who attested to the pair’s longstanding dalliance. One person said they saw Noem sitting on Lewandowski’s lap at a Mar-a-Lago event, and doing the “usual stuff that drunk people who are having affairs do.”
At the time, it was theorized that Kari Lake may have played a role in planting those damaging stories. The MAGA anti-drag queen was also campaigning to be Trump’s #2, though she was relegated to her Senate race in Arizona long ago.
It looks like Noem is following her, though she’s not even in a battleground state! Kristi is stuck in South Dakota, or more accurately, 85% of it.
But hey, at least she has a fresh new smile 😃.
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