The South Dakota governor and potential vice-presidential pick for former President Donald J. Trump also dodged questions about abortion.
- Share full article
Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota is reportedly on the short list to be former President Donald J. Trump’s pick for vice president.
Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a potential vice-presidential pick for former President Donald J. Trump, refused to say on Sunday whether she would have certified the 2020 election if she had been in Vice President Mike Pence’s position. She also dodged questions about whether she supported exceptions to abortion bans for rape and incest.
“You can go back and keep talking about Jan. 6, but the fact of the matter is that was a day we hope we never see again here in this country,” Ms. Noem said on CNN. “We did not do justice by our country by showing and fighting over that day. We should focus on our freedoms and continue to uphold our Constitution. So talking in hypotheticals is not something that I do.”
When the interviewer, Dana Bash, pressed her on whether Mr. Pence had been wrong to certify the election results, Ms. Noem again avoided a direct answer, instead criticizing Mr. Pence for denouncing Mr. Trump after Jan. 6.
“I wasn’t in Mike Pence’s shoes, and the information that he had at that time — I don’t know how he based his decisions,” she said. “I think he’s a nice man. I think that he’s failed Donald Trump since that day, because he certainly does not recognize that we need someone in the White House who needs him out on the trail advocating for him, instead of constantly criticizing and going back and ripping him apart.”
On abortion, Ms. Noem, who supported a federal ban when she was a member of Congress, said she now believed restrictions should be left to individual states. That is the position Mr. Trump took this month, though his allies have developed plans that could functionally ban abortion nationwide without formally doing so.
Mr. Trump has also expressed support for rape and incest exceptions, which South Dakota’s near-total abortion ban does not include. When asked about that, Ms. Noem tried to distance herself from her own state’s law, noting that it was a “trigger ban” enacted years ago to take effect if the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Source: nytimes.com
