Governor Larry Rhoden admits he gave inflated numbers for arrests made under Operation Prairie Thunder, South Dakota’s participation in Trump’s military occupation of America:
“We worked side by side with local law enforcement, and during that three-day period, there were 174 drug arrests, including 44 felony arrests,” Rhoden said last week.
However, 174 people were not arrested for drugs, in fact the number is much lower than that. Monday, we talked with the governor hoping to get some clarification.
“It was 174 total drug arrests, but that number, the issue arose on what that number represented; it’s not 174 individuals, it was the total number of charges, so one individual, per se could have three drug charges, three different charges, but just one person, so it doesn’t represent 174 individual arrests,” said Rhoden.
Rhoden says the Department of Public Safety routinely reports the total number of charges as arrests.
“I was also unclear about that, but that’s the way they’ve reported it. It is routine for them, not for us,” said Rhoden [Tom Hanson, “Operation Prairie Thunder Arrests Misleading,” KELO-TV, 2025.09.08].
The Governor botched these numbers, but Rhoden still shows us why he’s a better leader than his predecessor, the vain and virulent Kristi Noem. First off, true to his promise of openness, he’s actually talking to the local press. There he is, sitting in a plain old office, not made up in a fancy private video studio, talking right to a South Dakota reporter. Second, he’s not blaming reporters for getting it wrong or attacking him. He’s taking responsibility for his own fake news and explaining exactly how he got the numbers wrong. Hanson says the Department of Public Safety had told him they are working on providing accurate arrest numbers.
Rhoden still goofed, but at least he’s talking to the press about his goof.
I don’t know if Rhoden is this smart, but what he originally said made the main headlines and this is just the correction which less people see.
We have to allow that in civil, honest discourse people will sometimes make a mistake or misspeak. I applaud the Governor correcting the error — not fake news — but error of his remarks.
Doing this makes me more believe everything else he says.
O, I agree with your first sentence wholeheartedly. However, Operation Prairie Thunder isn’t predicated on civility or honesty. No Operation Prairie Thunder, no error to begin with. I don’t think we need to beat him over the head with this, but we don’t need to applaud stuff we teach in kindergarten either.
I notice the governor is complaining about legislators being a hard “NO” on the prison site no matter what’s presented to them. He and his party fostered that attitude when it was politically beneficial. Once he stands up to those types of people and decides to be a governor for everybody that’s wants to be a part of a community, then I’ll applaud.
Don’t forget that the SDGOP is broke and broken so if you are a South Dakota conservative with the fire in the belly who can get on the General Election ballot in 2026 and intends to run as an unaffiliated or third party candidate for any statewide office or for the legislature from your district I will support your efforts both with money and in print.