South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was indulging in Donald Trump's "fetish" for brutality by confessing to gunning down her family's puppy for misbehavior, according to anti-Trump conservative Charlie Sykes.

The Republican governor who has been considered a frontrunner to become the former president's running mate, and both Sykes and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough agreed Noem was pitching herself to Trump by revealing that she had fatally shot the 14-month-old pup for ruining a pheasant hunt and killing a neighbor's chickens.

"It's the confessional aspect, the confessional aspect was done as a political pose: 'I'm tough, I'm mean, I'm an S.O.B. and I would even kill a little puppy if it's in my way,'" Scarborough said. "That's the sickest part of this. Donald Trump's Republican Party and the grotesque, the grotesqueness of the conservative movement's, the violent wing, this is where they go. This is virtue signaling for Republicans. Virtue signaling – 'I shot in cold blood a puppy in a gravel pit.'"

"I think that is the most extraordinary part about all of this [is] that she thought this would be a plus for her," Sykes said. "Look, this book is a campaign book. It is a resume to be Donald Trump's vice president. She thought it was a good idea, let's include this story. Let's tell this story about myself, how I took this puppy and shot him in the gravel pit. Why should we have done this? The obvious explanation is she thought that Donald Trump would like it. She thought that this would be a net positive. I can imagine her buddy Corey Lewandowski saying, 'No, put it in, Kristi, because Donald Trump wants people who are willing to do the tough, dirty, nasty things that are necessary,' and she did. Now, obviously, it's blown up in her face because even in our -- even on Earth 2.0, killing puppies is a net negative. I suppose one of the good things is we haven't seen MAGA world come out in defense of puppy killing. Of course, we've seen them come out in favor of a lot of things, but this does say a lot. Kristi Noem put this in the book and did not think it would be a net negative in the mind of Donald Trump."