Kristi Noem all but confirmed over the weekend that she won’t be the country’s next vice president and she doesn’t seem happy about it.

During an appearance on Meet the Press, South Dakota’s gay-hating governor said she hasn’t been formally vetted to be Trump’s #2, all but assuring she won’t be his pick despite spending the past year campaigning for the gig, often by engaging in culture wars and fanning the flames of LGBTQ+ hate.

Asked whether she’s received any vetting paperwork, the 52-year-old replied, “The only person who knows who the vice president’s going to be is Donald Trump.”

“I haven’t received any paperwork,” she added. “I’ve had conversations with the president, and I know that he is the only one who will be making the decisions on who will be his vice president.”

Meanwhile, during a campaign stop in Philadelphia over the weekend, Trump told NBC News he’s decided on a running mate “in my mind, yeah.”

He added that “nobody knows” who his choice is, but he will “most likely” announce their name at CNN’s presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday, the first of two scheduled debates against President Joe Biden.

“They’ll be there,” the 78-year-old, convicted ex-president said. “I think we have a lot of people coming.”

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Noem had been auditioning to be Trump’s #2 for the better part of a year before she released her memoir No Going Back last month, in which she wrote in graphic detail about the time she shot a 14-month-old puppy in a gravel pit because it was “less than worthless” and she “hated” it.

The shocking confession horrified pretty much everyone–Democrats and Republicans alike–and all but guaranteed she could, would, and should never be Trump’s VP pick.

“Trump isn’t a dog person necessarily, but I think he understands that you can’t choose a puppy killer as your pick, for blatantly obvious reasons,” a campaign insider told the New York Post shortly after the story broke.

It also killed her approval rating in her home state.

A South Dakota News Watch poll conducted last month found that two-thirds of South Dakotans said Noem damaged her credibility by writing the book, and nearly half said they now hold an unfavorable view of her.

When asked on Meet the Press if she thinks her puppy killing confession cost her her shot at the vice presidency, Noem appeared irritated by the question and she spun a word salad.

“I would say that that was a story from 20 years ago about me protecting my children from a vicious animal,” she began. “So, we’ve covered that–and any mom in those situations, when you have an animal that’s viciously killing livestock and attacking people, it’s a tough decision.”

“The reason it’s in my book is because that book is filled with challenging times and hard decisions. And it’s a story, but I think many Americans will be able to read and to learn how they can get engaged with their government again.”

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We’re not sure how Noem went from killing a puppy to American civics, but she didn’t stop there!

“The reason it’s in my book is because that book is filled with challenging times and hard decisions,” she continued. “And it’s a story, but I think many Americans will be able to read and to learn how they can get engaged with their government again.”

“And if you read the book, a lot of what got reported was not the truth, was not the truth on the story,” she blabbed on. “So, I would encourage people to read the book and to really find out the truth on why that story is in there and read the other parts of the story about how we’re not going back to politics the way that it used to be, how Donald Trump changed politics because we’re having much more honest and genuine conversations about the challenges that people face.”

Last week, Noem dropped America’s Governor: The Kristi Noem Story exclusively on Twitter X, a new documentary detailing her life story through interviews with her family. It’s a followup to that weird commercial she made for that dentist’s office in Texas earlier this year.

Biden and Trump will face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 general election this Thursday. The event begins at 9 p.m. ET and is expected to run for 90 minutes. CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will moderate at the network’s studios in Atlanta, Georgia, the same state where Trump is currently charged with election racketeering.

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