'Not just Trump': Columnist argues president-elect’s Cabinet has a 'problem with dogs'

29 November 2024

President-elect Donald Trump broke with the tradition of not having a White House dog during his first administration, and will likely continue bucking that tradition in his second term. And he reportedly disliked then-Vice President Mike Pence's pets living in the official residence. But those are the most vanilla dog-related fact of the incoming Trump administration in comparison to his Cabinet, according to one columnist.

In her latest essay for the Daily Beast, columnist Jill Twiss delved into the multiple disturbing stories about several of Trump's Cabinet appointees that pertain to dogs, pointing out that four high-profile nominees each have scandals involving dogs. She asked readers: "What the f— does the Trump administration have against dogs?!"

"[I]t’s not just Trump," she wrote. "There’s a disturbing trend in his senior political appointees. And before they are confirmed, we need to figure out exactly what the f— is going on."

South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem, who Trump tapped to be the next Homeland Security secretary, has the most notorious dog story. In her memoir released earlier this year, she recalled how she shot her dog, Cricket, to death after the family pet scared away birds she was trying to hunt, and later attacking a group of chickens. Twiss observed that "Cricket was killed because she was bad at hunting birds and also really good at hunting birds."

Twiss also reminded readers that Department of Health and Human Services secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may or may not have eaten a dog on camera. One viral photo of the far-right conspiracy theorist — who once suggested Covid-19 was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jewish and Chinese people — showed him munching on a carcass that a veterinarian said was a dog's (due to the skeletal structure). RFK Jr. maintains it was a goat.

The columnist then mentioned how Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was fined for killing hundreds of dogs while conducting research at Columbia University. A whistleblower recalled how Oz routinely killed dogs "with syringes of expired drugs inserted in their hearts without any sedation."

As for Attorney General-designate Pam Bondi, Twiss acknowledged that her dog story didn't involve killing or eating one, but stealing one. Before she was Florida's attorney general, Bondi reportedly stole a family's St. Bernard dog named Tank, who was displaced during Hurricane Katrina, and renamed him Noah. When the family discovered Tank's whereabouts and asked for his return, Bondi refused. They sued and a court eventually made Bondi give Tank back to his family. Twiss opined naming the dog Noah was "not a crime, but it is an objectively worse name than Tank."

Click here to read Twiss' op-ed in full (subscription required).

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