What are the details?
During Sunday's interview, Stephanopoulos asked Noem if she would work with former Vice President Joe Biden — whom numerous media outlets on Saturday declared the winner of the 2020 election over President Donald Trump — with regard to the coronavirus.
Noem's interview came after far-left New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's, in which he urged Republicans to accept Biden's victory and predicted more governors will acknowledge the pandemic's severity once Trump leaves office, Townhall reported.
"Well, it is a regional increase that we're seeing. We are testing more," Noem replied. "And, frankly ... I'm not going to take advice from Gov. Cuomo. He has the second-worst death rate per 100,000 people in this nation. He's at 173 deaths per 100,000 per capita; South Dakota's at 54."
She then noted such questions are "premature" since the election technically isn't over, and legal challenges from the Trump camp appear to be on the way.
"We have not finished counting votes," Noem said. "There're states that have not been called, and back in 2000, [Democratic presidential nominee] Al Gore was given his day in court. We should give President Trump his day in court, let the process unfold because, George, we live in a republic. We are a government that gets its power from the consent of the governed. That is the people. They give their consent on Election Day. Election Day needs to be fair, honest, and transparent, and we need to be sure that we had an honest election before we decide who gets to be in the White House the next four years."
Stephanopolous rushed in to interrupt while Noem was finishing her sentence, asking if she had any evidence that it wasn't an honest election and adding that he's spoken with Republican officials who gave "zero evidence" of widespread fraud.
Besides the fact that voting irregularities in a handful of swing states are at issue as opposed to "widespread fraud," Noem told Stephanopolous his assertions were "absolutely not true" and that "people have signed legal documents, affidavits, stating that they saw illegal activities, and that is why we need to have this conversation in court. The New York Times itself said that there were clerical errors. ... In Michigan we had computer glitches that changed Republican votes to Democrat votes. ... Dead people voted in Pennsylvania."
"So George, I don't know how widespread it is. I don't know if it will change the outcome of the election," she added. "But why is everybody so scared just to have a fair election and find out? We gave Al Gore 37 days to run the process before we decided who was going to be president. Why would we not afford the 70.6 million Americans that voted for Trump the same consideration? If Joe Biden really wants to unify this country, he would wait and make sure we had a fair election."
By the end of the interview, despite all the points Noem made, Stephanopoulos wedged in a whopper, saying "It starts with providing evidence; you still have not provided that, but I'm afraid we're out of time today. Gov. Noem, thanks for your time."
"Let the process work, and we will," she said.
The smack comes down
Noem wasn't about to let things go after the interview. She replied to the "This Week" video tweet of her chat with Stephanopoulos — and added a well-deserved zinger when the intrepid poster referred to her state as "North Dakota":
"More mischaracterization from ABC," she wrote. "Watch the interview, I gave several specific instances of serious election integrity concerns. Oh, and it's SOUTH Dakota":
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