[32] According to The Hill, her role was to push the leadership to make significant cuts to federal government spending and to help Speaker John Boehner manage the expectations of the freshman class.

[50] Noem opposed a bill introduced by South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson that would designate over 48,000 acres (190 km2) of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland as protected wilderness.

[55] In March 2011, Noem was critical of President Barack Obama's approach to the NATO-led military intervention in the 2011 Libyan civil war, calling on him to provide more information about the U.S.'s role in the conflict, and characterizing his statements as vague and ambiguous.

[60] Noem wanted to add such provisions to federal law as limits on medical malpractice lawsuits and allowing patients to buy health insurance plans from other states.

[63] In August 2010, while running for Congress, Noem responded to a questionnaire from the Christian Coalition voter guide indicating that she would vote to ban embryonic stem-cell research.

[64][65] In 2018, Noem was reported to have "pitched the idea to members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus" to attach her online sales tax bill to the government funding package as part of an omnibus.

[67][68] She cited the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicaid, high-speed rail projects, cap-and-trade technical assistance, and subsidies for the Washington Metro rapid transit system as examples of federal programs where she would like to see cuts.

[112] In May 2023, she signed an executive order prohibiting the downloading or use of any application or visiting of any website owned by the Chinese company Tencent, including apps like WeChat, on state-owned devices.

[113] In March 2024, she signed a bill prohibiting the governments of six countries—China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela—and entities from those countries from buying agricultural land in South Dakota.

Bren said that on July 26, Department of Labor attorney Amber Mulder told her to be prepared to discuss "what is the definition of a serious deficiency; what criteria do you use for denials; how many are denied each year; how many are approved; are we saying that Kassidy can take certain classes and resubmit".

[126][127] On February 24, 2022, Republican State Representative John Mills introduced House Resolution 7004, "Addressing the Governor's unacceptable actions in matters related to the appraiser certification program", against Noem.

[128] On March 1, the resolution was debated and failed by a margin of 29 to 38 with three excused, including Noem's primary opponent Steven Haugaard and U.S. House candidate Taffy Howard.

"[133] In March 2024, Noem claimed that there are "some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there", but gave no evidence, and that there are people "who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, 'Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge.

[145] Early in the pandemic, Noem requested that the legislature pass a bill giving the state health secretary and county officials the power to close businesses and other entities.

[155] Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar misinformed a group of legislators that meatpacking plants employees were unlikely to be infected at work, but that their "home and social" habits were spreading the contagion.

[156] On April 13, 2020, of an outbreak where hundreds of workers had tested positive at a Smithfield pork plant, she told Fox News, "We believe that 99 percent of what's going on today wasn't happening inside the facility".

[156] In the pandemic's early days, the Food Safety and Inspection Service did not provide protective equipment to its monitors, forbidding them from wearing masks in the slaughterhouses as it feared that might accentuate the risks.

[191][192] Noem hired the private Washington D.C. law firm Consovoy McCarthy to bring the case, with South Dakota state taxpayer money paying for the suit.

[195] On March 14, 2022, the National Park Service again denied Noem's application for a permit to have fireworks at Mount Rushmore for the 4th of July, citing opposition from Native American groups and the possibility of wildfires.

The legislation amended the state RFRA to allow business owners to cite religious beliefs as a basis to deny products or services to people based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

[238][239][240][241] In February 2019, she said that the Trump administration's trade wars with China and the European Union had devastated South Dakota's economy, particularly the agricultural sector, "by far" the state's largest industry.

[248] In the early morning of January 28, 2025, Noem joined multiple federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE, to lead a raid on illegal immigrants in New York City.

[262][263][264] After the U.S. Capitol was attacked by a pro-Trump mob on January 6, 2021, disrupting the counting of the electoral votes formalizing Biden's victory, Noem spoke out against the violence, saying: "We are all entitled to peacefully protest.

[273] At the February 2024 CPAC conference, Noem tied with Vivek Ramaswamy as attendees' top choice for Trump's running mate, with each receiving 15% of the vote in a straw poll.

[277] In April 2024, insiders said that her odds of being selected as Trump's running mate had waned due to her stance on abortion and the revelation in her book No Going Back that she shot and killed her pet dog and a goat.

[278][279][280] It was noted that "additions, subtractions and the emergence of dark-horse candidates remain possible", but on June 5, NBC News reported that Noem was no longer on Trump's shortlist of running mates.

Noem called the report a "disgusting lie", saying, "these old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can't achieve anything without a man's help.

[289][290] In March 2024, Noem shared a video in which she identified herself as the South Dakota governor and promoted a cosmetic dentist business that she said helped her after she lost her front teeth in a biking accident years before: "I love my new family at Smile Texas!".

[301] Noem initially responded that "tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm", and subsequently said the incident occurred 20 years ago, and that "the fake news ... put the worst spin" on the story, as Cricket was a "working dog" that "came to us from a family who had found her way too aggressive ... a responsible owner does what they need to do".

[312] The Washington Post's literary critic Ron Charles wrote that the "description of Cricket's Last Stand is the one time in this howlingly dull book that Noem demonstrates any sense of setting, character, plot and emotional honesty.