2024 Hopeful Kristi Noem Shanks GOP Governors at CPAC for Covid Lockdowns: They’re ‘Rewriting History’
Governor Kristi Noem (R-SD) did not hold back from torching fellow GOP leaders who took initiative to enact Covid-19 safety mandates, while questioning their integrity.
The potential 2024 White House hopeful did not waste anytime during her speech at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, going in on “Republican governors across this country pretending they didn’t shut down their states.”
“Now I’m not picking fights with Republican governors,” said Noem, “All I’m saying is that we need leaders with grit. That their first instinct is the right instinct.”
The South Dakota Governor dug further into GOP leaders claiming that they are now “rewriting history” about their state’s Covid-19 records and policy implementation.
While Noem did not call out any of her fellow Republican governors by name, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) — thought by many to be a leading 2024 contender — has notably been criticized for backtracking on Covid-19 mandate implementation in his state.
Noem gained media attention last November when she went against CDC recommendations and did not implement state-wide mask mandates, without regard to case surges within South Dakota.
She highlighted that “South Dakota did not do any of those (measures). We didn’t mandate.”
Continuing that, “We trusted our people and it told them that personal responsibility was the best answer.”
However, according to data from Johns Hopkins University South Dakota ranked the third highest rate in the nation, with 14,090 cases per 100,000 people.
This data did not deter Noem from praising her own passive approach and taking pride in the fact that she never instructed a “single business” to close in response to rising case rates.
Noem continued touting her own actions during the pandemic while also ripping into Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — saying “I don’t know if you agree with me, but Dr. Fauci is wrong a lot.”
Watch above, via Forbes. (The relevant portion begins at the 11:40 mark.)
