Kristi Noem’s Face the Nation interview didn’t go well

South Dakota Governor and rising Conservative star Kristi Noem was a big hit on Saturday at CPAC, where she bragged about her state’s response to the coronavirus in a headlining speech. But an interview she did hours later with CBS highlighted how her attempt to turn the tide does not survive close scrutiny.

In reality, South Dakota’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic – including Noem’s refusal to enforce a mask warrant – amounted to “a failed experiment in collective immunity,” as Bloomberg says. recently said so. The state has one of the 10 highest death rates in the United States. More than one in 500 residents has died since the start of the pandemic. And like Face the nation Host Margaret Brennan noted during the CBS interview that South Dakota’s death rate is the highest in the country since last July.

Noting that the governor is a staunch conservative, Brennan urged Noem to explain how someone who claims to care about the sanctity of life can “justify making decisions that put the health of your constituents at risk.” His response was insane whataboutism.

“These are questions you should ask all the other governors in this country as well,” she said, although the crux of the question is that South Dakota’s Covid-19 response has been a failure. – and much more limited – compared to the vast majority of other states.

Perhaps more blatantly, Noem encouraged people to come to his state last August for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, despite the raging pandemic.

Public health experts said holding the rally, which eventually drew nearly 500,000 people, was a very bad idea. And at least one study has confirmed it – a study from the Center for Health Economics & Policy Studies at San Diego State University found that not only could it have infected hundreds of thousands of people with the virus, but would potentially involve more than $ 12 billion. in health costs.

Asked about the San Diego study by Brennan, Noem said she values ​​allowing “people to make decisions for themselves” above all else.

“Look, what we’ve done is empower people to make decisions for themselves,” she said. “We gave them all the information about this virus – how to protect their health – and then we allowed them to make decisions to make decisions about what they were going to do.”

“My question is, if we had demanded that people stay at home, if we had demanded that businesses shut down, would that have made a difference?” Noem continued. “I would say it wouldn’t have been the case.”

As Brennan pointed out, however, Noem’s position is not supported by the facts. In addition to the above-mentioned San Diego study linking Sturgis to several thousand cases, President Donald Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Deborah Birx recently described Noem’s decision to allow Sturgis as “not good”. And as the Washington Post reports, health experts believe the rally may have sown coronavirus cases in the Midwest, contributing to the increase in nationwide cases last fall.

Noem’s response to the coronavirus has even been criticized by Republicans like West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who responded to criticism of his mask tenure last November by saying, “I don’t want to be South Dakota. ” Brennan asked Noem about Justice’s remark, but instead of committing to it, Noem immediately turned to Blue State governors like Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, who were both faced with questions about their response. Covid-19.

In short, Noem’s CBS interview didn’t go well for her. But Margaret Brennan is not the base of the GOP, and if Noem’s CPAC reception is any indication, Republican primary voters actually consider Noem’s response to the coronavirus a success.

Noem’s speech to CPAC illustrated how little the Conservatives have learned about the coronavirus

“Let me be clear – Covid hasn’t crushed the economy, the government has crushed the economy,” Noem told CPAC on Saturday, before taking a photo directly on trusted public health experts.

“Dr. Fauci is very wrong, ”she added, to immense applause.

Noem’s position that personal freedoms are more important than public health appears to be the consensus view at CPAC. This was illustrated by a remarkable scene on Friday in which conference organizers had to implore attendees to follow hotel rules and wear a mask on the scene to boo and yell in “freedom!”

Noem is not a fan of masks herself. Earlier this month, she was widely criticized for tweeting photos of herself posing without a mask with a group of legislative pages during a dinner at the governor’s mansion (all pages in the photo, except one, were without mask).

At the very least, the photo set a bad example for her constituents – especially since it gave them the choice to wear masks. But in these polarized times, what to scientists sounds like a bad example sounds like a heroic example of libs possession for Republicans.

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