he never tried to do anything. sometimes, we would sit in the conference room after meetings and there would be a break and sit there for 15, 20 minutes. half of a in silence, and then he would start talking in a monotone, telling me about his childhood and telling me about other things. >> the full program is available to watch online >> democracy. it isn't just an idea. it is a process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select you with guarding its basic principles. it is where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nation's course is charted. democracy in real-time. this is c-span. giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> if you missed your favorite

nonfiction author, you can find all of our programming online at booktv.org. just use the search bar at the top of the page. david: governor kristi noem, i'm going to rip the band-aid off and get straight as him of the topics you may not want to discuss and then we will get right into "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland," urrand-new book. have you ever thought, generally speaking about running for president? gov. noem: people ask me about it quite a bit. but i am focused on staying in south dakota. i am running for reelection, i hope the people of our state trust me to serve them another four years, and that is what my goal is. beyond that, i know we need good leadership in this country. david: have you ever given specific thought to running for president in 2024? gov. noem: no i haven't. people speculate.

that is the nature of politics but i specifically have not. i am not convinced that has to be me in that position. david: fair enough. i wanted to do a little time traveling for just a moment. we are in the midst right now, in washington, and granted a lot of people look at what happens in washington and scratch their heads but we are in the midst of the special select committee in the house to examine what happened on january 6, 2021. on that day as you watched supporters of former president donald trump try to storm the capital to halt the certification of president joe biden's victory -- gov. noem: like many people, i was aggrieved by what i was seeing. i think what is going on with the committees now and what we saw this week was discouraging. a lot of the testimony was hearsay, not necessarily factual and that is why i think there are so many things going on with

inflation, energy costs, things impacting families across the nation that i would love to see congress focus on and do what they can to continue to make sure that we have an environment where people can feed their families, pursue opportunities in the future for their careers and really protect their freedoms. david: do you view president trump as the undisputed leader of the republican party and if he chooses to run in 2024, should other republicans step aside? gov. noem: i spent a lot of time talking to people across the country, and right now i don't believe there is anybody that can defeat president trump in a republican primary. he has a group of an -- of individuals who are extremely loyal to him. i have always supported his policies. i thought his leadership was good for the country compared to what we have today. it'll be interesting to see how that shapes up, but if he were to run he would have my support.

david: i want to talk to you about the republican party generally. i noticed this in the aftermath of the 2020 election, you delivered a speech at the republican national committee in georgia and you were quite -- quite critical of how republicans in congress have operated at times, and you are critical of the party's inability to deliver on campaign promises. where do you think your party has fallen short? gov. noem: i think if you go back and look at what i said, i said that we have fallen short at times, but i also said, where we need to go, but we need to do, what is hopeful about the republican party. that is what the country is desperate for, some optimism. in south dakota, we did what conservatives believe, in the last several years, we had a very limited government role, we gave people flexibility, let them use personal responsibility

to make the best decisions for their families and businesses and now the economy is leading the nation. our children are doing better, incomes are going up faster and people are thriving more. leadership has consequences and republicans can be a party that brings hope, brings optimism and that is what the people in this country need to be reminded of all stuff this is a very special kind street -- special country and so much of what we see in the news is discouraging. david: when you served in congress, you entered with a brand-new republican majority but with a democrat -- democrat still in the white house. i wanted to get your insight, republicans could have a very good november this year. beginning next january, they could have majorities of some sort in the house and senate, at

least the ability to put bills on the floor and pass some of them. what is your recommendation to your fellow republicans in congress or who may be in congress next year in terms of how you deliver on what they believe the american people want, but how you also function in a political reality where democrats are still a cleat to have luster power in the senate to block house passed bills and where president biden is still going to be in the white house with the veto pen? gov. noem: the reality is the senate doesn't even have to talk about what the house is talking about. that is what is so broken about washington, d.c. ialabout this in my book that was just released this week called "not my first rodeo," but it talks about the dysfunction in washington, d.c. when i served in congress the first couple of years, we did have barack obama in the white house and we learned how to figure out how to get some things passed.

a lot of things we wanted to do in the house did not get passed but it was a check and balance to the system. what i believe republicans in the house and senate need to do is cast a vision for where we are going, not just to be opposed to joe biden even though so many of his policies are bad right now. i do think that we also have to be pretty clear on what we are for and be ready to take action should we have the opportunity to get congressional bills passed and get them to the president. david: in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland," you discuss a lot about what you are for. you also talk about your experiences. do you think republicans outside of south dakota other than yourself have done a good job casting a vision for what republicans will do with majorities if they win in november? gov. noem: i think it depends on the republican, what their message is. there are some that are talking

about what they would like to do. there are many that want to get regulations off of our backs, better trade agreements, address national security concerns, make sure we are leading with peace through strength. those are all of those things that they talk about. the house of representatives has been messaging what they would do if they were to get the house back. i think governing is incredibly important and also keeping perspective. so many people have been successful in the past, running for office when they talked about what the people at home care about. we saw a new governor get elected in virginia by focusing on what people cared about in the communities throughout that state. not getting diverted down national divisive topics but what his people cared about, and the kids and the education they were getting. that is a discipline that we could all learn as public servants, that even though what we think may be the conversation to be having, it is what the people at home want us to focus on that we should be looking at.

david: let's get into your book. if you haven't written one of these things before, not always as easy as it might appr. i have a little experience with that myself. i wanted to ask off the top, "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland," what is your book about? gov. noem: most people would assume it is just a political book. that it voices all of my opinions on the political topics of the day, but it is really more a story of my life lived so far, what i've learned over the years, leadership qualities from the heartland. how i grew up on a ranch and what a very big presence in my life my dad taught me by having a strong work ethic. we don't complain about things, we fix them. how i work in the state legislature. people first heard my name

during covid but it is important for them to know that was not my first rodeo, my first challenge. i did have a life before that and served in congress and some of those experiences along the way would give people a better understanding about how i make my decisions when it comes to this public office i hold today. david: "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland" opens with my favorite story of yours. i bet you a lot of people have not heard this story, so i want to go to your words. it is chapter one and i thought it was fitting given how often you talk about this in terms of how it shaped you. chapter one is titled the tapes. you start the book like this. don't know why i'm doing this, he said over the cackles of the tape recorder. i guess i will go check cows. click, the tape stopped, that was the end. i couldn't believe what i just heard. what i had just found.

what i held in my hands and what a gift it was. suddenly i knew everything would be ok or was going to be. we were going to get through this. governor noem, talk about this story, fill it in for us and why it is such a poignant moment in your life. gov. noem: most people wonder how i got involved in government and politics to begin with. i don't come from a political family. no one had been that interested in government, no one had run for office and it was a very strange route for me to take, growing up just wanting to graduate from college, go home and be in business, on the farm and ranch with my dad. it really was a big life changer for me when my dad was killed in an accident on our family operation. i was 22 years old at the time. my older brother and sister were living out of state, my younger brother in high school.

i ended up quitting college and coming home to be the general manager of a very large business. i was wishing that i could just ask my dad questions. i had been working all the time, trying to figure out how to keep the business together, we were hit with debt, taxes, and for months i struggled and wondered if we would be ok and then one day i decided i would finally clean out i dad's pickup which is where he ran everything out of. most ranchers and farmers live out of their pickup trucks and i found these little dictation tapes, micro cassette recorder and these tapes and when i started to play them, it was my dad's voice and on these tapes were answers to all the questions that i wish i had over the months previous. it was what variety of seed corn worked on what soil, what cattle did well in our climate, what

neighbors to trust, which ones were good friends, what to do if we got in financial trouble. he talked about his kids, what he thought we would be when we grew up. some of those tapes were almost 10 years old. he had moved them from pickup to pick up over the years. my dad was not a talker so it was shocking to find something like that. no one had any idea he was doing something like that and i was amazed at the fact that the answer to every question i could have possibly had was on those tapes. it was like a prayer delivered and answered and at that moment i felt a peace that passes all understanding. i just knew that if god cared enough to give me all the answers to those questions, we were going to be fine. david: talk about the farm a little bit. how big is it, how long has it been in the family? gov. noem: it's been in the family for generations.

my dad grew up on the operation. i live on the ranch my dad purchased when i was 12 or 13. that's about 15 miles away from where the original farm is but it is very special land. my grandfather bought the first piece of land by not having even two dollars he could scrape together. he started a mink and fox farm and raised money that way to buy their first quarter of land. i come from a family that recognized the value of owning something. my dad said all the time, don't sell land, god isn't making anymore. your whole estate, what your legacy was, was tied up in the land that you could pass on to your children and grandchildren. it's a special place, more than just a place to call home. it's a place where our family had its roots, its foundation. david: in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland," you

talk about a moment where you and your dad took a drive to what you referred to in the book as native land and got really excited about it and he said yeah, i bought it. is that the ranch? gov. noem: that is where i live, yes. in our state, it is hard to find native ground, land that has never been turned, plowed, it is the same as it would have been hundreds of years ago. it is very special. there are certain native flowers, our state flower only grows on native land. i always treasured rough prairie like that. i remember being very young and my dad showing me this special place of hundreds of acres that was all native, saying i wanted to live there someday and my dad said well i bought it, it is mine and me asking him if i could live there someday and him saying well, someday i will let you buy it from me. there was no free lunch in my

dad's world. i eventually did and my husband and i still live there today. david: what are the different things that you farm and who runs the farm today? gov. noem: today, my brothers do. when i went to congress, four siblings, we all worked together in partnership with my mom for many years. when i went to congress i was going to be gone a lot and obviously spending my time in other entities so my brothers at that time bought my sister and i out of the business operation. we still had equity in the land and other things but they run the business and do the farming. david: the book is "not my first rodeo: lso from the heartland." the author is governor kristi noem of south dakota. a lot of children will grow up in a family business, and either reject the family business or just not want to go in the same line of work as their parents. this is something that you

embraced. i was trying to get a sense of how much this was a matter of circumstance for you given your father's accident or whether this is something you ultimately decided that you loved enough to want to do before you found your current vocation? gov. noem: i would say my dad and i were a lot alike. my brother says if you want to know what my dad was like, spend a day with kristi. my dream was farming and ranching. we both have strong personalities and we both kind of wanted to be in charge. i don't know what that would have looked like, but i did not think that i could ever be happy not farming and ranching. my passion is animals. i love the land, i love being outdoors. the fact that i do what i do today is very strange, it was never on my radar. my plan was always to be involved in the family business. the fact that i am not today is

a very unique circumstance. david: you spend a lot of time in "not my first rodeo," talking about your parents. who are they, where did they come from, how did they meet? gov. noem: my dad grew up in the same area as my mom. they grew up in watertown, about 20 miles away. they are both from the northeastern corner of south dakota. my dad was raised out in the country, farming and raising cattle. my mom was a city girl. david: what does that mean in south dakota? gov. noem: it means the town was probably 15,000 to 20,000 people. probably not a city girl in terms of what a lot of the country probably thinks but she certainly had 4h and had shown cattle before. she certainly had never run tractors or lived the kind of life my dad had required when she married him. she says when she got married,

she moved out to the farm and was so lonely because it was so far away from her family. they only went into town on sundays. she was immediately put in a tractor and had no idea what to do. i think they met through high school friends but quickly fell in love, got married and my mom's whole life became running the business with my dad. he worked so hard all the time. she was kind of the peacemaker in the family. she kept us alive. he was always coming in the house and saying let's go and she was the one shoving food into our pockets saying eat this on the way, taking care of us and running parts and stuff around the country, supporting the business. david: do you know how far back your family goes in south dakota and where they came from? gov. noem: my grandfather on my mother's side, it was his parents that came over from norway.

my dad's grandparents had been here before, but they were german, originally settled up north of us. at least four generations in this country, very much tied to the land. they worked and earned every single thing that they have today. david: and your siblings, you talk a lot about them and you wrote a lot about them in "not my first rodeo." what was your relationship growing up, what's it been like as governor? when they get out of line have you ever threaten them with tax audits? gov. noem: my sister is the oldest and i tell folks i may run south dakota but she runs my life. when she tells me to do something, i do it and when i got elected to congress, that was such a different thing for our family, i was the children's pastor at our church, i was

running businesses, my kids were little. she was the one that filled in all the holes. she took over every job that i suddenly dropped. she took care of my kids, ran treats to the school, took them to the doctor. her and my mother were incredible he helpful with this sudden up people in life when i decided to go do something different. my brother went to college to get a psychology degree so he was never going to come back and be a part of the business until my dad passed away and came home to help for a little while. after a couple of years he decided to stay. rock is the one, he is the second oldest, cindy is the oldest and rock is the one that when you say i had a bunch of dreams that kept me awake last night, he would say tell me about all the dreams you had and he would do an analysis. wonderful, a very deep thinker. i am the third out of four and

then my brother rob is the baby of the family, that he is the big guy, probably the most wonderful father i have ever met before. he has six children, three that he has adopted and a hard worker. he calls me every day to check on me and make sure i am doing ok. he loves machinery and working outside and really is a man of the land. i am probably closest to rob. when i was farming, it was cindy but we all recognize that what we had growing up, being so close and spending 20 years in business together was a really special way to grow up. all of our children feel like they are brothers and sisters because every day they were together while we were running our operation, growing up at the same age and that doesn't happen everywhere. david: no it doesn't. family businesses can be quite

contentious and it does not always go well. i have some personal experience with that. you have an anniversary coming up or it already happened, depending on when people are watching this. talk to me about how you met your husband and how did you end up -- people would find this interesting -- how did you end up honeymooning at dodger stadium in los angeles? that is my neck of the woods. i could almost look at l.a., kind of a small town depending on how much traffic i have to fight to get anywhere. that had to be some real culture shock for you. gov. noem: my husband went to the same high school i did. he was two years older than me stop we didn't start dating until he went to college. i was still in high school. to be honest with you, he was one of my brother's friends and we started dating, and it was interesting because when we got

engaged and we were going to get married, he had not left the state of south dakota before. he had gone to minneapolis once for a twins game, but he was a huge dodgers fan. his dad was a brooklyn dodger fan and had always watched and listened to games and it was a very big decision for him on where to go for a honeymoon. if you could go anywhere in the world, where do you want to go? we didn't have any money, so doing something on a budget was important and we were trying to figure out what to do and he was struggling so much i said listen, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go in without thinking he said dodger stadium and i said all right, let's go to dodger stadium for our honeymoon. the problem was the dodgers didn't play until about two weeks after we got married. we got married and went right back to work at the farm the next day and two weeks later left for our honeymoon and i did

not realize when i agreed to dodger stadium that i was agreeing to go to the entire series. that meant all of batting practice as well and staying until the games were over. my husband was so enthralled with being there. he brought my dad's video camera. this was back in the 1990's, it was bright yellow and big as a suitcase. video cameras were not allowed in dodger stadium but he snuck it in every day and went around and try to video everything he could and then was chased by security guards. i would just sit there and wonder what kind of honeymoon is this? they eventually took it away from him. we came home with about 11 or 12 hours of videotape of just dodger stadium because he loved it so much. that was an interesting honeymoon but very special because he was thrilled to be there. we've been married 30 years now

and about 10 years later, he did take me on a crews so i did get a different kind of trip. very special guy. when he married me, i was going to be a farmer. he didn't necessarily sign up for this crazy life we live, but he has hung in there and has been the support i need to continue doing what i'm doing. david: to his credit, dodger stadium is one of the most beautiful baseball stadiums in the country, so he has good taste. gov. noem: yes he does. and it was beautiful. just, i ate a lot of dodger dogs that week. david:nomy first rodeo: lessons from the heartland" is the book. governor kristi noem of south dakota is the author. let's talk about your first rodeo. you decide after a while of running the farm to get involved in politics. it sort of started off innocently enough because whenever you run a business, you

are very attuned to government regulations, taxes, more so than if you are getting a check every week. that got you involved in policy and having opinions on that. you make the leap to run for a seat in state legislature. what were you thinking at the time and how did your family react? this is not in the grand scheme of things, that long ago. in the modern era when somebody runs for congress, the spotlight hits their family, their family's business dealings, all sorts of things. not just the candidate. gov. noem: after my dad passed away, within a year or two i had received some awards that kind of put me on people's radar. i was named south dakota's outstanding young farmer within a few years, and south dakota's outstanding young leader. at that time our u.s. senator was tom -- was tom daschle. he was from south dakota and i

was in a lot of his meetings. he ended up appointing me to a board that oversaw federal farm programs in the state, so i was involved in policy and showing up with different people. people asked me to consider running for state legislature. it was interesting because my family thought that was strange, nobody's done that before but in our state, the legislature meets for 40 days a year. you balance the budget, pass bills and go back to your jobs. it wasn't that big of a commitment outside of session, and we figured we would try it and if it worked, everything would be ok. i did that, got elected and ran for leadership right away and served as assistant majority leader in the house but that was when a lot of the pressure came to run for congress which i was not interested in doing. people asked for two years, if my husband and i would consider

running for congress because we were represented in the house by a blue dog democrat. i was a republican and people wanted me to challenge that representative before she decided to go after john flynn, our u.s. senator. i think a lot of john's supporters and he himself were interested in me challenging and beating her before she decided to run for the senate. after two years of people calling and talking -- and i explained a lot of this in the book -- i finally said to my husband, debbie we just run and if we lose, people will leave us alone and we can quit talking about this. she was very popular at the time, had not voted for obama care or the stimulus package but she had voted for nancy pelosi and i spent a lot of my time during that campaign talking about that. that was really when things got elevated to more of a national level because it was a heated

campaign, one of the top five in the nation and very contentious. i was admittedly out of my element, and it was a very interesting difficult campaign. david: that democrat was stephanie her set sail and. she made south dakota very competitive for democrats just before it seemed like politics in your state tipped to the right. i did not realize that you had had a relationship of sorts with tom daschle, former senator from south dakota, democrat majority leader in the u.s. senate. talk about that because we don't see that sort of thing that often anymore. gov. noem: tom was always very good to me. in fact, he gave me opportunities that i would say even republicans would not give me opportunities to do. in south dakota for a democrat to be elected and even for republicans, you need to be a little bipartisan and work together.

south dakota is very populist. people think it is very conservative and it is really not. my last race one i ran for governor, it was against a guy who was a bernie sanders supporter. it is very much a state that can go back and forth and tom was the majority leader, very influential. i cared about farm bill's and tax reform and i was somebody that didn't complain about things. i tried to show up and be a part of the solution. i think he appreciated that. he had a leadership camp every year that he would host for new leaders in the state, that he thought had potential to serve and he did invite me to that one year. and i went, it was in the black hills for a weekend and he brought in speakers and we spent time together talking about policy and what it is like to run for office.

it was interesting to me because i never once considered becoming a democrat. i think he hoped i would, but for years after that, even when i ran for congress i had a lot of republicans who questioned if i was truly a republican just because i had attended that leadership camp that tom daschle had hosted. i was surprised by how they felt like that tainted my credentials to even be a republican that i would go and spend time with democrats. david: it struck me in reading "not my first rodeo" that politics is something you really -- i don't know if the phrase would be fell in love with but for somebody who was not steeped in it and came to it later in life, i feel like you dove right in and in a sense found your calling. talk about doing this for a living, the past few years and how it has felt in terms of the

professional satisfaction you have gotten from the work. gov. noem: my husband would tell you that i am kind of obsessive with everything i do. whatever i do, i do 110%. even when i worked at the farm, i was working 20 hour days, the kids were coming with me and the tractors, we were always adding more and more things to what we needed to get accomplished every day. i had a grandmother told me when i was having my first daughter that i needed to say yes to things in the world is filled with people who say no, i can't do that and i should be a mom and a person who said yes and i took that to heart. i would think that while i dove in headfirst, going 100 miles per hour in politics, i kind of did that with everything stop i tell couple stories in the book about how i decided one time to take up quilting and that was not very smart because

my mom finally came to me after i hadn't slept for three days because i couldn't stop until the quilt was done and she said i don't think quilting is for you it is supposed to be relaxing and you are supposed to sleep but i could not stop until i got the project done. that's a little bit of my personality but i definitely recognize that if i'm going to be gone from my family, i'm going to be gone from my commitments at the businesses, then i want to make a difference. i might as well be in leadership, to be the person in the room making the decisions and that is kind of the approach i've always had is when i'm gone someday, i want people to say she lived a life of significance. david: that obsessiveness you describe lends a lot more context to a story you talk about in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland," about soon after you first arrived in the state legislature, and it was about

the issue of abortion which is very timely right now. i just want to read from your book. you immediately -- and correct me if i am misremembering -- but you immediately proposed just leash and -- proposed legislation to curtail abortion rights or however you would like to describe it, and some other republicans, obviously pro-life republicans in the legislature told you it was bad strategy. they weren't pleased with it. you emailed your constituents back home, that email made its way into a blog and it became the topic of conversation in your state. you write about tharcles that were written, the article made me sound arrogant and naive and fraly was. i had sent the message to everyone that i couldn't be trusted. if i disagree with someone, i would start attacking them with emails to constituents.

talk to me about how formative that experience was in how you develop your governing style even on issues where you are extremely passionate, and where you are very principled, and how that approach is how you have governed as the chief executive? gov. noem: that situation, i was brand-new to the legislature. i wanted to do something impactful. we had just had a ballot initiative that would have completely banned abortions in the state. it had gone to the public and failed and i wanted to immediately bring another bill forward that would have the debate in the legislature. i remember having a meeting with those who cared about this issue and just being shocked that the state's president of right to life was against bringing a bill and it was a man from my own district, but he was also my husband's cousin. that tells you how small south dakota is.

i was just so surprised by it, but i went and immediately after the meeting, emailed people back home and said they needed to call him and talk to him, and that made it into the public news stories and i realized immediately how bad i sounded, i can know it all, but i didn't even go to him and discuss it with him and instead i decided to start emailing people back home who didn't have a context of what was said in the meeting or the strategy behind it and it was a very teachable moment for me. i didn't want to be the kind of person who ambushed others in policy and i recognize that trust is something where you create an environment where you build a team, it is not where use -- where you trust somebody or don't. it is like a bank account. how you treat people, how you talk to them and how dependable you are is building trust day after day and i wanted my colleagues to know i was someone who was reasonable, logical,

smart and could look at the consequences of everything we did and make sure it was the right thing to do. i appreciated that teaching lesson. it was pretty miserable because i was brand-new and everyone avoided me after that, everyone was talking about me and i felt like i really had gotten off on the wrong but and that is when the majority leader came to me, invited me out to dinner. he tells everybody the reason he did that is he went around to other members and people that worked in the legislature, lobbyists and said hey do you want to have dinner with kristi noem and me? she doesn't have any friends. they agreed and those four men that came to that dinner that night who met with this young mom and shared a meal and their thoughts and knowledge about the legislature are still my dearest friends today. david: i think one of the reasons that particular anecdote from "not my first rodeo:

lessons from the heartland" jumped out at being is we are talking in the immediate aftermath of the supreme court decision in dobbs v jackson women's health center. as you are well aware and the country is well aware, that decision overturned roe v. wade and eliminated federal protections for abortion rights and returned that question to the states. what does abortion, what do abortion rights look like in south dakota, and the aftermath of you and the legislature now having the ability to decide on this question? gov. noem: in 2005, south dakota passed a bill to put in place a trigger law that said if roe was ever overturned, abortion would be illegal in the state except to save the life of the mother. that is the law today. david: and where does the prohibition begin in pregnancy? is the life of the mother the

only exception? gov. noem: the life of the mother is the only exception as the statute reads and it is not any consequences against the mother, where it would add any kind of punishment, it would be on the doctor's responsibility, a doctor who knowingly broke the law, they are the ones who would be prosecuted, never the women involved in this situation, with an unplanned pregnancy or a crisis they feel they may be facing because of the situation. david: and where does south dakota law and this trigger law, where does the prohibition come in? conception, six weeks, 15 weeks? gov. noem: it is in the first trimester and it is when that pregnancy can be detected. that is part of the debate and if you remember, the next case that would come before the supreme court, it was a south dakota case. we had been watching the dobbs case in south dakota,

recognizing it could overturn roe. we believed if it did not, the next case the supreme court would hear would be planned parenthood versus noem. it is a decision on informed consent that i now believe planned parenthood is asking to be dismissed because of the decision we have seen come down on roe v. wade. david: is this essentially a heartbeat bill? once a heartbeat has been detected, that is when the prohibition kicks in? gov. noem: we actually had a debate this year on doing a heartbeat bill, much like texas that would have put it in place whether or not roe v. wade was overturned or not. it is interesting to me because we had some division among republicans about that. many republicans in the legislature did not want to bring a heartbeat bill because they felt it would jeopardize our supreme court case. they didn't want planned parenthood to completely pull out of the state because they felt like that would undermine the case that we would have that

may overturn roe. i wanted to introduce the bill, brought it forward in the legislature, -- forward and the legislature refused to accept it. that is what i believe the debate should be around, when you can detect the heartbeat and you know that is a human life. david: i don't mean to belabor this but can you help define a little bit better, where in the first trimester is abortion still legal and at what point in that first trimester does it become illegal? gov. noem: it is when that pregnancy is determined between the woman and the doctor, when there is notification. abortions are illegal as of today except to save the life of the mother. david: and in response to criticism often from democrats but not only democrats, that south dakota law does not allow exceptions in cases of rape or incest, how do you respond to that? gov. noem: i think that will continue to be a debate.

there are people in south dakota that are continuing to talk about that. for me personally, it's a difficult conversation because i know that this tragic situation happens to women, it is horrific and i cannot imagine. i never had to go anything -- through anything like that. i just believe a tragedy shouldn't be followed up by another tragedy and we know from science and technology over the years that this is a life, this is a baby, that it does feel pain and we also know that when doctors do procedures on these babies, the ar defined as patients, that they have patient rights and that it is difficult to say this is a patient that has rights and not say it is a human life at the same time. an intelligent conversation on what every life is precious means is something the public will continue to debate when they see what these laws look

like from state to state. david: would you like to see congress where you once served, pass legislation tanning abortion nationally? gov. noem: i think it is appropriate right now that the discussion happens at the state level. that is what the constitution defines as the responsibility of the state. -- amongst a government close to the people instead of at the federal level. david: in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartla," you recount a story that sticks with me when i'm telling the story for whatever reason, about the republican majority elected in 2010 and the leadership difficulties, speaker john boehner, majority leader eric cantor had in corralling the new tea party majority. telling the story is informative for people looking at republicans in congress now and

the difficulty they have unifying. although it makes sense that you would not want an agriculture bill messed with given how important it is to south dakota, you had a colleague -- you talk about this in "not my first rodeo," -- that want to put work requirements for food stamps in the agriculture bill. while you felt that may have been worthy, you said it was a poison pill and you worked with leadership hard not to get -- not to bend on this and get the agriculture bill through. what struck me is as conservative as you are on policy, there is a pragmatic side to how you govern and you have sometimes been criticized for that from the right. talk about what that experience was like, and how it has sort of informed your policymaking style. gov. noem: i think it is good to understand that i viewed food policy as a national security

issue. when another country grows our food for us, they control us. america has always embraced a safe food policy and also an affordable one. it is important to us that every family in this country can afford to go to a grocery store and buy what they need to feed their families. that is one of the reasons you have a farm bill. it is a safety net program. farmers go to the bank, they borrow money and they put in the dirt and they hope that rain will have fallen, the sun will shine and they can pick up something to pay their bills. you can have one bad year and lose everything. that safety net is incredibly important. it has always been a bipartisan bill that changed dramatically in the next farm bill that happened after 2010. we make these policy discussions, especially in washington, d.c., there is no perfect bill ever. i wish there was but you will never make everybody happy. this farm bill is very

important, to keep that safety net in place, so we didn't have china controlling our food supply, we didn't have other countries growing for us and having us reliant on those imports and was a very good responsible bill. the problem is we knew that work requirements on food stamps was going to cause a lot of democrats to bail. they weren't going to support the bill if that was included. we had several other bills coming that could have had that debate, could have been attached to it, could have been a bill on its own but instead, the leadership team decided to allow an amendment on the farm bill that they spoke to, knowing it was a poison pill that would kill the farm bill and did it anyways, which i felt like is not what leadership is. you lead the team and by doing that, he let a lot of his team down in it -- and i let him know.

it was a bit of a battle but at the end of the day, we got the farm bill passed. not being a team on important policy has cost republicans the ability to govern and address the big challenges we have in this country as far as debt and spending and even national security issues. i talk about that experience quite a bit because people need to understand where their food comes from, why it is important we have farmers in this country but also when it's important, i will challenge leaders even if i am the only member of the house from my state fighting alone and no one is with me. i will stand up and push because if it is important and if it matters, then it's worth it. and i won that discussion. dad: the book is "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland." the author is governor kristi noem of south dakota. governor noem, i think the

reason that story jumped out at me is because in looking at the tea party era, i believe -- and i have talked to other republicans about this -- that felt they had a chance even with barack obama in the white house to move conservative policy forward, however slowly, however sometimes frustratingly small. but because there were too many in the group that wanted more, that didn't want to compromise on what they felt were principals, the whole thing came crashing down and i'm wondering if that would be instructive for the next republican majority, if you could get some movement even with joe biden in the white house. that is what i felt like you were saying with this story in "not my first rodeo." am i misinterpreting? gov. noem: no, i think that is a very good lesson to have. it is incredibly important that leaders lay out the full plan,

that members have a competence of where you are going. they might be willing to support a bill like that, that didn't have everything in it if they knew it was going to be addressed in the future. that is where we have fallen down as republicans, not having a strategic plan showing people where we are going to make a big difference into the future. what gets people results this day and age is blow each other up, vote no all day and nothing changes. that's unfortunate because it is not us who will pay the price, it'll be our children and grandchildren and what we are doing today in this country is unsustainable. in the way we demonize each other and talk about each other is destructive to our republic. words have consequences and the division that we have does not facilitate debate and conversation and better policy and we have to have leaders that step forward and help make that happen so we end up in a place where we still have a country that our founders envisioned.

david: a lot of americans first heard your name during the coronavirus pandemic. where were you and what were you involved in when you first heard of covid-19 and realized you were dealing with a crisis? gov. noem: i was running my state and making decisions. all of 2019, we were dealing with flooding. we had been hit with a bomb cyclone that had caused a federal disaster in 63 of my 66 counties. i had spent all of 2019 responding to emergencies, helping families and businesses and towns get patched back together, facilitating fema assistance. i was certain 2020 was going to be better and we would get back to normal government operations. when i started to hear about this virus at the end of 2019, i wondered if it would come to the united states, if it was going

to be what they said it was going to be. january i set up an emergency operations center, started preparing for it, doing research, assessing supplies and what we could do. we got our first cases in march, and started to work our way through what the state government could do to help facilitate keeping people healthy but also giving them flexibility to get through it together. we were in legislative session most of january and february and we were continuing to fill in the just leaders on this and bring them to the table to figure out how to care to peop -- how to care for people. david: what were your thoughts when president trump recommended to the country a two-week shutdown, two weeks to slow the spread. what were your initial thoughts on that recommendation? gov. noem: i thought for our state that we would try to do that. i recommended that people do

that, did not mandate it, but also the health experts were telling us that we could have around 300,000 people in our state die from this virus. i held press conferences, told them this is what we were hearing, this is what president trump was asking us to do and encourage them to do so. most of the people in the state listened. they went out for essentials, they did what they needed to do. most of the time, they try to not gather or do things that would happen and they didn't want to overwhelm our hospital systems. beyond that, the discussion was how long is this sustainable? my recommendations to people was going to be on how long they could continue to have this kind of action and conduct and exist. how could we keep our kids educated and keep our businesses open? we in april announced that we are going to go back to normal,

we have modified our activities in the state, not by mandating but by recommending and we were encouraging people to be smart, to wash their hands and socially distance when possible and not be in large gatherings but that we were going to go back to normal because it was the right thing to do. david: you wrote a lot about your coronavirus or to g in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland -- coronavirus strategy in "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland." when you made the shift back to a normal footing, did you know it was the right thing to do? did it seem -- was it simply a matter of balancing risks to the economy in addition to health risks? how sure were you that it was going to turn out ok? in retrospect, we can look at what happened in south dakota and what happened in some of the states that had more long-term stringent lockdowns, and say

that south dakota did ok although there is a lot of the v -- a lot of debate around that. you've spoken about this over the pascole of years and as you write about in "not my first rodeo," it is clear you have no regrets about the policy shift. but at the time, how much angst did you have about it if any? did you know for a fact it was going to work? gov. noem: we never in south dakota talked about cases that much. we focused on hospital capacity. all indications of what we recommended was focused on that, and repairing surge hospitals and working with national guard and administrators to make sure we could take care of people who should need care if they got sick. that was what kept things in perspective for us. we knew it was a virus, we knew people would catch it. we needed to focus on those who would get sick, what we could do

to help them get through it and get healthy again. i knew it was the right thing to do at the time. i also knew it was going to get criticized, and did, not just by liberals but by conservatives, my supporters, people that felt like they saw other governors doing different things and that i should just fall in line. i did not know how we would be impacted, but i also knew that what my authority was, what it wasn't, and that people in my state needed the ability to go forward and take care of their families the way they saw fit, making the best decisions with the information we could share with them. it was incredible what south dakota was doing. they were doing wonderful things to take care of the vulnerable population and we knew we would get through it together. david: governor kristi noem of soutdata is the author. the book, "not my first rodeo: lessons from the heartland." governor noem, thanks so much for joining us. gov. noem: thank you.

i enjoyed visiting with you. >> robert kennedy jr. was confirmed as the secretary of health and human services for the trump administration. mr. kennedy appeared on book tv in 2018 to discuss his book, american values. here is a portion of the program. >> as i read the book, there is no secret that the relationship between your family and the cia was a relationship that was fraught you might say. in fact, you write that your father, when jfk was killed, immediately suspected cia involvement. i noticed in the book as i read about your father's assassination, the name of his assassin is not mentioned in the book. with all of that in mind, i wonder, are you satisfied with the official version of those events or do you think of them differently? >> everyone believes the

official version of my uncles assassination. i don't think most people do. i don't. the united states congress did a two and a half year investigation. the warren commission was operating with very little knowledge and with an agenda, which president johnson did not want to get in a situation where he suspected -- he did not want to be in a position where he had to go to war with castro. he wanted a very quick resolution. a single shooter. he made that very clear. >> it relied on the fbi.

one of the people my uncle fired was the head of the warren commission, he was the effective head. he ran the commission. even the cia felt he lied and they were trying to get information. um, so, that was in 63. 64. in the early 70's the house select committee on assassinations concluded there had been multiple assassins and they were operating with broader information and able to penetrate the cia. i don't think anybody will say

lee harvey oswald was the sole assassin. my father did not believe that. >> the program is available at book tv.org. >> weekends on c-span two are an intellectual feast. american history tv, book tv bring you the latest in authors. we are funded by these companies including comcast. >> comcast is partnering with one thousand community centers to create wi-fi enabled listings so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. comcast support c-span2 as a public service. >> book tv continues now.