THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2020 N 17WASHINGTON — Since the
first days after she was elected
governor of South Dakota in 2018,
Kristi Noem had been working to
ensure that President Trump
would come to Mount Rushmore
for a fireworks-filled July 4 ex-
travaganza.
After all, the president had told
her in the Oval Office that he as-
pired to have his image etched on
the monument. And last year, a
White House aide reached out to
the governor’s office with a ques-
tion, according to a Republican of-
ficial familiar with the conversa-
tion: What’s the process to add ad-
ditional presidents to Mount
Rushmore?
So last month, when the presi-
dent arrived in the Black Hills for
the star-spangled spectacle he
had pined for, Ms. Noem made the
most of it.
Introducing Mr. Trump against
the floodlit backdrop of his carved
predecessors, the governor
played to the president’s craving
for adulation by noting that in just
three days more than 125,000 peo-
ple had signed up for only 7,
seats; she likened him to Theo-
dore Roosevelt, a leader who
“braves the dangers of the
arena”; and she mimicked the
president’s rhetoric by scorning
protesters who she said were
seeking to discredit the country’s
founders.
In private, the efforts to charm
Mr. Trump were more pointed, ac-
cording to a person familiar with
the episode: Ms. Noem greeted
him with a four-foot replica of
Mount Rushmore that included a
fifth presidential likeness: his.
But less than three weeks later,
Ms. Noem came to the White
House with far less fanfare — to
meet not with Mr. Trump, but with
Vice President Mike Pence. Word
had circulated through the Trump
administration that she was in-
gratiating herself with the presi-
dent, fueling suspicions that there
might have been a discussion
about her serving as his running
mate in November. Ms. Noem as-
sured Mr. Pence that she wanted
to help the ticket however she
could, according to an official
present.
She never stated it directly, but
the vice president found her mes-
sage clear: She was not after his
job.
There is no indication Mr.
Trump wants to replace Mr.
Pence. Mr. Trump last month told
Fox News that he’s sticking with
Mr. Pence, whom he called a
“friend.”
Yet with polls showing the pres-
ident trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr.,
the presumptive Democratic
nominee, and Republicans at risk
of being shut out of power in Con-
gress, a host of party leaders have
begun eyeing the future, maneu-
vering around a mercurial presi-
dent.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkan-
sas was in New Hampshire late
last month, Senator Rick Scott of
Florida is angling to take over the
Senate Republican campaign arm
to cultivate donors, and Repre-
sentative Liz Cheney of Wyoming
is defending Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,
the government’s leading expert
on infectious disease, while sepa-
rating herself from Mr. Trump on
some national security issues.
At the same time, Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo is attempting
to shore up his conservative cre-
dentials by pushing a hard line on
China, and Senators Ted Cruz of
Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky
are attempting to reclaim their
standing as fiscal hawks by loudly
opposing additional spending on
coronavirus relief.
Drawing less attention, but
working equally hard to burnish
her national profile, is Ms. Noem.
The governor, 48, has installed a
TV studio in her state capitol, be-
come a Fox News regular and
started taking advice from Mr.
Trump’s former 2016 campaign
manager, Corey Lewandowski,
who still has the president’s ear.
Next month, she’ll address a
county Republican dinner in Iowa.
“There seems like there might
be some interest on her part — it
certainly gets noticed,” Jon
Hansen, a Republican state repre-
sentative in South Dakota, said of
Ms. Noem’s positioning for na-
tional office.
Her efforts have paid off, as evi-
denced by the news-driving cele-
bration at Mount Rushmore. Yet
Ms. Noem’s attempts to raise her
profile have not been without
complications. And they illustrate
the risks in political maneuvering
with a president who has little re-
straint when it comes to confiden-
tiality, and a White House that
shares his obsession about, and
antenna for, palace intrigue.
To the surprise of some of her
own advisers, Ms. Noem flew with
Mr. Trump to Washington on Air
Force One late in the evening after
his Mount Rushmore speech.
Joined by Mr. Lewandowski, she
and the president spoke for over
an hour privately during the flight
— a fact that Mr. Trump and some
of his aides soon shared with other
Republicans, according to officials
familiar with his disclosure.
An aide to Ms. Noem, Maggie
Seidel, said she did not raise the
vice presidency with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Lewandowski, who is a paid
adviser to the Pence-aligned
Great America PAC, also denied
that he or the governor ever
raised the subject of replacing Mr.
Pence on the ticket.
Mr. Lewandowski, in a brief in-
terview, described Ms. Noem as a
star who “has a huge future in Re-
publican politics.”
A White House official laughed
at the notion that Mr. Trump is
open to replacing Mr. Pence, a
move that, among other things,
would exude desperation. And re-
garding the phone call about add-
ing the president’s image to
Mount Rushmore, the official
noted that it is a federal, not state,
monument.
Still, word of the Air Force One
conversation quickly reached
White House officials, including
those in Mr. Pence’s office.
A short time later, Ms. Noem
was jetting back to the capital, this
time in less grand fashion, after
requesting a meeting with Mr.
Pence.
White House aides kept Ms.
Noem from meeting with Mr.Trump again, one person familiar
with the planning said. But Mr.
Pence’s office gladly put his ses-
sion with the governor on his pub-
lic schedule and the vice president
tweeted about it afterward. Ms.
Noem’s aides, hoping to tamp
down questions about the second
trip, emphasized that she had also
met with officials from the Depart-
ment of Health and Human Serv-
ices and other agencies while she
was in the capital.
One official close to the vice
president said that Ms. Noem did
not discuss her Air Force One
flight with Mr. Pence but used the
conversation to say she wanted to
help the campaign however she
could. The official suggested that
the vice president’s team has an
opportunity for her in mind: help-
ing Mr. Pence prepare to debate
whichever woman Mr. Biden se-
lects as his running mate.
Yet one senior Trump adviser
has recently lamented to others
that Mr. Trump could have
boosted his re-election campaign
had he replaced Mr. Pence with a
woman, according to people famil-
iar with the conversations. One
potential candidate mentioned
was Nikki Haley, the former
United Nations ambassador who
is close to the president’s daugh-
ter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump
and Jared Kushner.However, Mr. Pence has been
an unstinting ally of Mr. Trump,
and the vice president retains a
number of allies in the president’s
orbit.
“I think we’ll win South Dakota
either way,” Brian Ballard, a lob-
byist close to Mr. Trump, said.
That these kinds of speculative
conversations about a different
running mate have taken place at
all, though, illustrates the depth of
frustration in Mr. Trump’s inner
circle over his political fortunes.
With early voting starting in less
than two months in some states,
the president’s ineffectual re-
sponse to the coronavirus has
alienated voters and made the
election primarily a referendum
on him.
Speculation has long lingered in
Republican circles that Mr. Trump
could swap out Mr. Pence for Ms.
Haley, partly because of the presi-
dent’s own musings about it.
For a time in 2018, Mr. Trump
queried people about Mr. Pence’s
loyalty. And officials in the admin-
istration, including some close to
Mr. Pence, said they believed that
Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump wereangling to replace him with Ms.
Haley.
In his memoir, “The Room
Where It Happened,” the former
national security adviser John R.
Bolton recounts how, flying to Iraq
on Christmas night in 2018, the
president asked him for his opin-
ion on jettisoning Mr. Pence.
Ms. Noem, the daughter of a
rancher who took over her fam-
ily’s property after her father
died, has insisted that she has lit-
tle appetite to return to Washing-
ton, where she served as South
Dakota’s sole House member for
eight years before becoming gov-
ernor.
“She’s focused on being the gov-
ernor of South Dakota,” said Ms.
Seidel, her senior adviser.
The president’s transition team
contacted her about interviewing
for a cabinet post after the 2016
election, but she was already plan-
ning to run for governor then.
Some of her allies believe she’d
also be open to the interior or agri-
cultural secretary roles in a sec-
ond Trump term ahead of the 2024
race. Ms. Noem’s poll numbers
have increased after a difficultfirst year in office. But to some of
her aides, Mr. Lewandowski, a
hard-charging New Englander,
has been a disruptive presence in
Pierre, South Dakota’s small state
capital. He appeared as a guest
speaker at one luncheon with cab-
inet officials and pressed the gov-
ernor’s appointees to make a more
aggressive case for her, irritating
the state officials, according to a
person briefed on the events.
The governor is now on her
third chief of staff because the last
one, Joshua Shields, left in part be-
cause of the increased role of Mr.
Lewandowski, according to South
Dakota Republicans.
Mr. Lewandowski has sought
opportunities that could benefit
both Mr. Trump and Ms. Noem. He
recently discussed with the presi-
dent’s advisers sending Mr.
Trump to the annual motorcycle
rally in Sturgis, S.D., where there
would be a big crowd and where
the two might have appeared to-
gether again; Mr. Trump’s aides
did not want him in the same polit-
ically safe state twice in two
months.
Ms. Noem has been a steadfast
ally of Mr. Trump and has mir-
rored his handling of the virus.
She has pushed for schools to
reopen for in-person classes, de-
nounced mask mandates and had
South Dakota participate in a
study on hydroxychloroquine, the
malaria treatment Mr. Trump has
trumpeted.
It was her star turn at Mount
Rushmore, though, that has got-
ten Republicans talking and been
a boon to South Dakota tourism,
the state’s second-largest indus-
try.
Recognizing the president’s im-
mense interest in the monument,
Ms. Noem worked with his Interi-
or Department to ensure there
would be fireworks for the cele-
bration, a longstanding priority
for Mr. Trump. There had been no
fireworks there for the previous
decade because of environmental
and fire-risk concerns.
In the weeks leading up to the
event, Ms. Noem went on Laura
Ingraham’s show on Fox News to
make clear she was expecting to
“have a large event” for the presi-
dent and would not require social
distancing or masks.
Then, as the president sat
watching her remarks in a bun-
ting-wrapped box just offstage,
she praised America as a place
where someone who was “just a
farm kid” could become “the first
female governor of South Dako-
ta.”How Trump’s Trip to Mt. Rushmore Fueled Rumors Over Pence’s Job
By JONATHAN MARTIN
and MAGGIE HABERMANGov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota told Vice President Mike Pence that she wanted to help him and President Trump win re-election.RYAN HERMENS/RAPID CITY JOURNAL, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESSTHE MAGAZINE
An article on Page 20 about
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tion at the University of Wiscon-
sin medical school. She is chair of
the department of medicine, not
chair of the medical school. It also
refers incorrectly to the partici-
pants in a conference call. Dr.
Stella Hahn was not in the confer-
ence room with her colleagues
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