Experts dismiss Kristi Noem’s ‘dubious’ claim to have met Kim Jong-un

The South Dakota governor, Republican vice-presidential hopeful and self-confessed dog-killer Kristi Noem’s bizarre claim in a new book to have met the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has been dismissed by experts as “dubious” and not “conceivable”.

The South Dakota Scout first reported Noem’s claim, which is in her forthcoming book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward.

The book will be published next week. Last week, the Guardian obtained a copy and reported how Noem describes killing Cricket – a 14-month-old dog she said she “hated” – after deeming her uncontrollable and a danger to people, and a goat she said was “nasty and mean”, smelled “disgusting, musky, rancid”, and bothered her children.

Noem has repeatedly defended the story as illustrative of the harsh realities of farm life. But it set off a political firestorm, by most assessments dynamiting the governor’s chance of being named running mate to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

The Scout reported that Noem’s book also contains “at least two instances in which she recounts meetings with world leaders that are in dispute”.

In one, Noem writes: “Through my tenure on the House armed services committee, I had the chance to travel to many countries to meet with world leaders.

“I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”

But the Scout quoted one “longtime, high-level Capitol Hill staffer” who worked on the armed services committee when Noem was on it, between 2013 and 2015, as saying: “It’s bullshit.”

“That staffer was among a dozen