south dakota governor kristi noem has been nominated to serve as homeland security secretary mnuchin trump administration. she was first elected in 2018 after serving in the u.s. house of representatives for eight years. prior to congress, she was also a state representative from 2007 until 2011. up next, a look at governor kristi noem in 2021 as she addressed the annual conservative political action conference known as cpac. ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome south dakota governor kristi noem. [applause]

governor noem: hi. good afternoon. you all look wonderful. it is such an honor to be with all of you here today. aww, thank you! listen, listen my guess is a my guess is a year ago most of you had no idea who i was. but unlike the d.c. media, i am sure you all at least know there are two dakotas? [laughter] and i am the governor of the warmer one. [laughter] i am here today to share some of the lessons of my state. the main questions that need to be answered this weekend is, why does america need conservatives. the question of why america need

conservatives can be answered by mentioning a single year, and the ear is 2020. everyone knows that almost overnight we went from a roaring economy to a tragic nationwide shutdown. by the beginning of 2020, former president trump had created 7 million new american jobs. [applause] we had the lowest unemployment rate in over half a century, unemployment rate for black, hispanic and asian americans reached the lowest levels in history. more than 10 million people had been lifted out of poverty and out of welfare, and all of that changed in march. most governors shutdown their states. what followed was record unemployment, businesses closed, most schools shattered, and communities suffered, and the u.s. economy came to an immediate halt. now let me be clear didn't crash the economy, government crushed

the economy. [applause] and then just as quickly, government turned around and held itself out as the savior. and frankly the treasury department can't print money fast enough to keep up with congress's wishes. but not everyone has followed this path. for those who don't know, south dakota is the only state in america that never ordered a single business or church to close. [cheers and applause] we never instituted a shelter-in-place order. we never mandated that people wear masks. [applause]

we never even define what an essential business is, because i don't believe the governors have the authority to tell you that your business is not essential. [applause] now, south dakota schools are no different than schools everywhere else in america, but we approached the pandemic differently. from the earliest days of the pandemic, our priority was the students, their well-being, and their education. when it was time to go back to school in the fall, we put our kids in the classroom. teachers -- [applause] administrators, parents, and the students themselves were of one mind, to make things work for our children. and the best way to do that was in the classroom. [applause] now in south dakota, i provided all of the information that we had to our people, and then i

trusted them to make the best decisions for themselves, their families, and, in turn, their communities. we never focused on the case numbers. instead we kept our eye on hospital capacity. now, dr. fauci told me that on my worst day, i would have 10,000 patients in the hospital. on our worst day, we had a little over 600. [applause] now, i don't know if you agree with me, but dr. fauci is wrong a lot. [cheers and applause] even in a pandemic public health , policy needs to take into account people's economic and social well-being. daily needs still need to be met. people need to keep a roof over

their heads. they need to feed their families. and they still need purpose. they need their dignity. my administration resisted the call for virus control. we looked at the science, the data and the facts and that we took a balanced approach. truthfully, i never thought that the decisions that i was making were going to be unique. i thought there would be more who would follow basic conservative principles. but i guess i was wrong. ask yourself this question. how far will people go to enforce mask mandates? once you start lockdowns, how long can you sustain them? in south dakota, we had some cases in march and april, but the virus didn't really hit the midwest until late fall. april but the virus did not hit the midwest until late fall. should we have cap two people in their homes for march onward? of course not. it's important to ask these questions. we have to show people how arbitrary these restrictions are. the coercion, the force, and tight liberty steps to enforce

them. often, the enforcement is not based on fact. justifying these mitigation efforts has been anything but scientific. many in the media, they criticized south dakota's approach. they labeled me as ill-informed, that i was reckless, and even a denier. some even claimed that south dakota was as bad as it gets anywhere in the world when it comes to covid-19. that is a lie. [applause] the media -- the media did all this while simultaneously praising governors who issued lockdowns, who mandated masks and shut down businesses, applauding them as taking the right steps to mitigate the spread of the virus. at one point, i appeared on george stephanopoulos' sunday show. i don't know if you watch that. no? you don't? shocker.

[laughter] he had just wrapped up a segment with new york governor andrew cuomo -- [crowd booing] -- where he asked cuomo to give me some advice on how to deal with covid. [laughter] now seems like a good time to remind everyone what governor cuomo was doing in new york. on march 25, cuomo ordered covid patients into nursing homes and he prohibited the staff from testing people before admitting them. nine days later, he pushed legislation prohibiting nursing home lawsuits over covid deaths. six days after that, he prohibited nursing homes from sending covid patients to the nearby naval hospital ships or the field hospital, both of which were essentially empty. eight days after that, the first death started to show up. and on january 28 of this year, the new york attorney general

announced that cuomo and his administration significantly undercounted the number of covid -related deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50%. to make matters worse, they tried to cover it up. that is the media's covid hero. and by the way, he also earned an ma. only wrote a book on his covid response. so who needed the advice? [applause] again, in south dakota, we did things differently. we applied common sense and conservative governing principles. we never exceeded our hospital capacity, and our economy is booming. we have the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. [applause] we are number one and the nation for keeping jobs, keeping businesses open and keeping money in the pockets of our people. [applause]

the people of south dakota kept their hours and wages at a higher rate than workers anywhere else in the nation, and our schools are open. [applause] america needs conservatives at the state and local level. 20 conservatives at the highest level of government too. in america, we have government of, by and for the people. [applause] our founding fathers established our national constitution and the people of individual states crafted their own constitutions that place specific limits on the role of government. those limits are essential to preventing government officials from trampling on people's rights. the people themselves are primarily responsible for their own health and well-being. they are the ones entrusted with expensive freedoms.

the free will to exercise their rights to work, worship and earn a living. no governor should ever dictate to their people which activities are officially approved or not approved, and no governor -- [applause] no governor should ever arrest, ticket or find people for cash fine -- fine people for exercising their freedoms. [applause] governors and members of congress and the president have a duty to respect the rights of the people who elected them. it seems that conservatives are the only ones who know what that means. personal responsibility is considered a god-given gift in south dakota. personal responsibility is not a term that conservatives have abandoned. when i was repairing to speak with you, i came across fascinating remarks that were made back in 1962. li