Rachel Maddow Attacks Kristi Noem On COVID. Noem Fires Back, ‘Stop Spreading Fear’

On Thursday, South Dakota GOP governor Kristi Noem blasted MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow after Maddow had cited coronavirus statistics to attack Noem. Maddow had targeted Noem after Noem had tweeted a picture of herself shooting, captioned, “This is how we do social distancing in South Dakota.”

Maddow, quoting the Argus-Leader, tried attacking Noem, tweeting, “South Dakota has just set new records in the number of people hospitalized, new cases, and overall active cases. With a 36% spike in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the last week, the state now has the highest per-capita rate of hospitalizations in the US.”

Perhaps Maddow thought Noem might be intimidated, but that wasn’t about to happen. Noem fired back,“Stop spreading fear. Only 8% of South Dakota’s hospital beds are occupied by COVID patients. We have and will continue to manage our resources to care for the people who need help. The people of South Dakota have accomplished this WITHOUT draconian lockdowns. #FactsNotFear.”

Prior to Maddow’s attack, another source attacked Noem, as a study from the Institute of Labor Economics stated that a motorcycle rally in Sturgis from August 7-16 had triggered hundreds of thousands of COVID cases. As Cortney O’Brien noted at Townhall:“In their introduction, the researchers explain how they arrived at the conclusion that this was a ‘super spreader’ event. ‘First, using anonymized cell phone data from SafeGraph, Inc. we document that (i) smartphone pings from non-residents, and (ii) foot traffic at restaurants and bars, retail establishments, entertainment venues, hotels and campgrounds each rose substantially in the census block groups hosting Sturgis rally events,’ the 63-page study begins.”

Noem fired back on Twitter, “This report isn’t science. It’s fiction. Under the guise of academic research, it’s nothing short of an attack on those who exercised their personal freedom to attend Sturgis. Predictably, some in the media breathlessly report on this non-peer reviewed model, built on incredibly faulty assumptions that do not reflect the actual facts and data. At one point, academic modeling also told us that South Dakota would have 10,000 COVID patients in the hospital at our peak. Today, we have less than 70. I look forward to good journalists, credible academics, and honest citizens repudiating this nonsense.”

In April, Noem appeared on the “The Ingraham Angle,” where she stated:

I had a real honest conversation with the people in our state. I told them I took an oath to uphold the Constitution of our state, of South Dakota. I took an oath when I was in Congress obviously to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I believe in our freedoms and liberties. What I’ve seen across the country is so many people give up their liberties for just a little bit of security and they don’t have to do that.

“If a leader will take too much power in a time of crisis, that is how we lose our country,” said Noem. “So, I felt like I’ve had to use every single opportunity to talk about why we slow things down, we make decisions based on science and facts, and make sure that we are not letting emotion grab ahold of the situation.”

O’Brien concluded, “South Dakota has just over 200 COVID deaths. If Maddow wants to pick on a state, why not pick on New York, where under Gov. Cuomo’s leadership nearly 33,000 people have succumbed to the virus.”