Kristi Noem’s interview with Face the Nation did not go well

South Dakota governor and conservative rising star Kristi Noem was a big hit at CPAC on Saturday, where she boasted about her state’s response to coronavirus during a prominent speech. But an interview she gave hours later with CBS highlighted how her attempt to turn reality upside down does not survive scrutiny.

In reality, South Dakota’s laissez faire approach to the pandemic – including Noem’s refusal to impose a mask mandate – has resulted in “an unsuccessful experience of collective immunity,” as Bloomberg recently put it. The state has one of the 10 highest death rates in the United States. More than 1 in 500 residents have died since the pandemic began. It is like Face the Nation Hostess Margaret Brennan noted during the CBS interview, South Dakota’s death rate has been the highest in the country since last July.

Noting that the governor is a staunch conservative, Brennan pressured Noem to explain how someone who claims to be concerned with the sanctity of life can “justify making decisions that endanger the health of its constituents.” His response was absurd about anything.

“These are questions you should be asking all the other governors in this country as well,” she said, although the main point of the question is that South Dakota’s Covid-19 response was a failure – and much more limited – when compared for the vast majority of other states.

Perhaps most striking is the fact that Noem encouraged people to come to his state last August for the Sturgis motorcycle rally, despite the violent pandemic.

Public health experts said holding the demonstration, which drew nearly 500,000 people, was a bad idea. And at least one study confirmed this – a study by 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 it would potentially involve more than $ 12 billion in costs health care.

Asked about Brennan’s San Diego study, Noem indicated that she values ​​allowing “people to make decisions for themselves” above all else.

“Listen, what we did was allow 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 about what they would do.”

“My question is if we had ordered people to stay at home, if we had ordered companies to be closed, would that have made a difference?” Noem continued. “I would say I wouldn’t have it.”

As Brennan pointed out, however, Noem’s position is not supported by facts. In addition to the San Diego study mentioned, linking Sturgis to many thousands of cases, President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx recently described Noem’s decision to allow Sturgis as “not doing well”. And, as the Washington Post reports, health experts believe the demonstration may have seeded cases of coronavirus across the Midwest, contributing to the increase in cases seen nationally last fall.

Noem’s response to the coronavirus was criticized even by Republicans such as West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who responded to critics of his mask term last November, saying, “I don’t want to be South Dakota.” Brennan asked Noem about Justice’s comment, but instead of getting involved with him, Noem immediately turned to attack blue state governors like Andrew Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, both of whom faced doubts about his Covid-19 response.

In short, Noem’s interview for CBS was not good for her. But Margaret Brennan is not the base of the Republican Party, and if Noem’s reception at CPAC is any indication, Republican voters in the primaries consider Noem’s response to the coronavirus to be a success.

Noem’s speech at CPAC illustrated how little conservatives have learned about the coronavirus

“Let me be clear – Covid did not crush the economy, the government crushed the economy,” Noem said at CPAC on Saturday, before shooting directly at trusted public health experts.

“Dr. Fauci is very wrong, ”she added, receiving much applause.

Noem’s position that personal freedoms are more important than public health seems to be the consensus view of CPAC. This was illustrated by a notable scene on Friday, in which conference organizers had to beg participants to follow the hotel’s rules and wear a mask on the spot for boos and shouts of “freedom!”

Noem herself doesn’t like masks. Earlier this month, she was widely criticized for tweeting photos of her posing unmasked with a bunch of legislative pages over dinner at the governor’s mansion (all but one page of the photo was unmasked).

At the very least, the photo set a bad example for its constituents – especially since it let them wear masks. But in these polarized times, what for scientific thinkers seems like a bad example, looks like a heroic example of owning libs for Republicans.

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