A week after getting hammered with tough questions on ABC and CBS Sunday shows, Gov. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) faced another round with CNN State of the Union host Dana Bash. She was harassed to support an abortion for a raped 10-year-old girl in Ohio.
Right after that, Bash interviewed Rep. Adam Kinzinger and told him her 11-year-old son would appreciate him calling Liz Cheney’s primary opponents “a bunch of armpit farters.” Bash is just that shameless.
She began by peppering Noem with a barrage of questions insisting she support paid family leave and taxpayer-subsidized child care in South Dakota now that abortion is largely outlawed in the state.
Then came the child-rape questions. Noem focused on the predator and then expressed the pro-life position that abortion after rape is adding a tragedy to a tragedy.
Bash also asked Noem if she was alarmed at what she heard in Cassidy Hutchinson’s January 6 committee testimony, and Noem denounced the hearing as more of a TV show than a fact-finding mission. Bash followed up: “I want to ask even more broadly, do you believe that President Trump bears any responsibility for what happened on January 6?” She pressed twice for Noem to assign blame to Trump, and Noem wouldn’t play. Noem did say “I think January 6 was a horrific day in our history. I never want to see that happen again.”
While Bash routinely interrupted Noem over 15 minutes, Kinzinger was allowed to unfurl long answers without much interruption. She began by setting up Kinzinger to denounce Noem as someone he used to respect, claiming she now sounds like she’s in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The utterance about Liz Cheney’s opponents wasn’t even a question:
You had a colorful reaction to that debate, using a term that I think my 11-year-old son would like. You said her opponents are -- quote -- "a bunch of armpit farters." But, realistically, one of them could very well win in November.
Bash’s only tough question came on how the 1/6 committee failed to check with the Secret Service before putting on Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that Trump somehow grabbed for the wheel of his limo and moved to grab the neck of a Secret Service agent. “Trump allies are trying to use this to discredit all of her testimony. Why did the committee put this out there, ask her about this, that she heard secondhand, without first obtaining corroborating evidence?”
It's quite rich that Kinzinger then dares his adversaries to testify in public and not fight by being an anonymous source in the press. Are we to believe Kinzinger hasn’t been an anonymous source in his war on Republicans?
Bash's biased approach was supported in part by Servpro and Azo Urinary Pain Relief.
Transcript below:
CNN's State of the Union
July 3, 2022
BASH: The Indianapolis Star is reporting that a 10-year-old girl in Ohio who was six weeks and three days pregnant now has to travel across state lines to Indiana to receive an abortion. So I just -- because this is a trigger law that was passed before you became governor, I wanted you to be clear. Will the state of South Dakota going forward force a 10-year-old in that very same situation to have a baby?
NOEM: You know what I think is incredible, Dana, in this tragic story? Because I heard about this last night. What's incredible is that nobody's talking about the pervert, horrible and deranged individual that raped a 10-year-old.
BASH: Right.
NOEM: And what is it? What are we doing about that? What are we doing about those individuals that do this to these children?
BASH: I agree with you, I mean, of course. That is an important discussion to have you. But the...
NOEM: You rape children, that's an issue that the Supreme Court has weighed in as well.
BASH: Yes. Listen, I totally understand that. But are...
NOEM: And as much as we can talk what we can do for that little girl, I think we also need to be addressing those sick individuals that do this to our children.
BASH: Right. I couldn't agree more.
NOEM: So, this...
BASH: But our bodies are our bodies, and women are the ones who get pregnant. And, in this case, it wasn't a woman. It was a girl.
NOEM: It's a child. It's a child.
BASH: Should she have to have -- a child. A child. Should she have that baby?
NOEM: And every single life -- every single life is precious. This tragedy is horrific. I can't even imagine. I've never had anybody in my family or myself gone through anything like this. I can't even imagine. But, in South Dakota, the law today is that abortions are illegal, except to save the life of the mother.
BASH: And you would be OK with that, a 10-year-old girl having to have a baby?
NOEM: No, I'm never OK with that. In fact, that story will keep me up at night. It absolutely will.
BASH: So, will you try to change the law to have an exception in a situation like that?
NOEM: It breaks my heart. I'm a mother. I'm a grandmother. Got a 1-year-old little granddaughter named Ms. Addie. I can't even imagine.
What I would say is, I don't believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy. And so there's more that we have got to do to make sure that we really are living a life that says every life is precious, especially innocent lives that have been shattered, like that 10-year-old girl.
BASH: Yeah. And it's incredibly complicated. And I get it. But I guess my question is, given how heartbroken you seem to be about the situation, maybe the question is this, because what I keep thinking about is, how is -- a 10-year-old girl physically...
NOEM: No.
BASH: ... probably can't even carry a baby without being, never mind emotionally and mentally sort of tormented, but physically hurt. Would you consider that the life of a mother at risk?
NOEM: And I think that's something that -- yeah, that situation, the doctor, the family, the individuals closest to that will make the decisions there for that family.
That's what's interesting about the time we live in right now, is every state will have different laws on the books. The decisions will be made by the legislators that are closest to the people. That's appropriate. It's the way our Constitution intended.
And I think that South Dakota's laws may look very different than California's, may look very different than New York's, where that governor has said she wants to become a destination known for providing abortions. That's not our story here in South Dakota. And I think every governor, every state will make a very different decision on what their laws look like.
