President-Elect Wants Matt Gaetz for Attorney General

Mr. Gor declined to comment. A spokesman for the Trump transition did not respond to an email seeking comment. The appointment was reported earlier by the website Semafor.

His appointment was heralded on social media by Donald Trump Jr., a close ally with whom Mr. Gor began the publishing company that produces the president-elect’s books, the least expensive of which sells for $74.99.

Putting Mr. Gor in the role had been under discussion for several days, according to three of the people briefed on the matter. There was an effort by some Trump associates to put Blake Masters, the former candidate for U.S. senator from Arizona, who is close to the venture capitalist Peter Thiel, into the personnel role, according to one of the people briefed. But Mr. Gor was the eventual choice of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Gor, who previously worked for Senator Rand Paul, co-founded Winning Team Publishing with Mr. Trump’s son after the elder Mr. Trump left the White House. Mr. Trump has published three books through the company, including one with a now-iconic image of a bloodied Mr. Trump pumping his fist after he was shot at an open-air rally in Butler, Pa., in an assassination attempt in July.

Mr. Gor also was the chief executive of a super PAC that spent tens of millions of dollars on Mr. Trump’s behalf, with major donors including Ike Perlmutter, the former chief executive of Marvel Entertainment and a Mar-a-Lago club member.

Mr. Gor officiated the small 2021 wedding ceremony of former Representative Matt Gaetz, whom Mr. Trump announced on Wednesday as his surprise pick for attorney general.

Under the new staff structure that Susie Wiles, Mr. Trump’s choice for White House chief of staff, has put in place, Mr. Gor’s office will be under the purview of Taylor Budowich, who has been announced as the deputy White House chief of staff for communications and personnel.

The presidential personnel office was, in Mr. Trump’s final year in office, led by John McEntee, a loyalist who took over the role just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning. But Mr. McEntee, with Mr. Trump’s encouragement, sought to systemically purge people who weren’t loyal to Mr. Trump, who has lamented that his biggest regret about his last term was many of the people he hired.

For the next administration, Mr. Trump has been intensely focused on loyalty, as he fills key roles within the West Wing as well as at the handful of agencies he cares about, including the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the C.I.A. and the Department of Homeland Security.

It was not yet clear what the margin of the Republican majority in the House would be, and preliminary counts pointed to the likelihood that they would again hold only a slight edge over Democrats. Votes were still being counted in some critical contests in the West, and a few other races were still too close to call.

The resignation of Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida on Wednesday after President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would nominate him for attorney general further complicated the math for the G.O.P. But Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader, had already conceded that his party had fallen short, and The Associated Press declared that Republicans had effectively won control of the chamber after calling an Arizona race for Representative Juan Ciscomani.

Even a slim majority amounted to an extraordinary triumph and turnabout for Republicans, who just a year ago fretted that voters would punish them for the chaos and dysfunction gripping the House under their leadership. Instead, G.O.P. leaders have said they intend to use their chokehold on power in Washington to begin quickly passing legislation, including a sweeping package of tax cuts, loosening of regulations on domestic oil and gas production, and stringent border security measures.

“Republicans in the House and Senate have a mandate,” Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference in front of the Capitol on Tuesday. “It was a decisive win across the nation.”

“We’re going to raise an America First banner above this place,” he said later.

As a red wave swept across the nation, with voters registering their unhappiness with the current Biden-Harris administration, many House Democrats and the party’s candidates were ultimately unable to outrun Vice President Kamala Harris’s performance.

Nowhere did the party face more of a drubbing than in Pennsylvania, where Republicans defeated Representative Matt Cartwright, who has held his Scranton-based Eighth Congressional District seat since 2013. Representative Susan Wild, who flipped her Lehigh Valley Seventh District seat in 2018, also lost.

A number of Democratic incumbents in the House outperformed expectations, clinging to their seats in Trump-friendly terrain and denying Republicans victories they had expected to notch.

And Democrats in New York won back three seats that had tormented them, ousting Representatives Marc Molinaro, Anthony D’Esposito, and Brandon Williams in the Hudson Valley, Long Island and Syracuse.

But all across the nation, Democratic challengers fell short in races that party operatives believed they could win. Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a veteran Republican, defied the political headwinds in his liberal-leaning Omaha district to win a fourth term. And incumbents facing competitive races in Iowa and Arizona fended off their opponents, leaving Democrats short of the 218 seats they needed to win back control.

Maya C. Miller contributed reporting.

A federal judge in Manhattan ordered Mr. Giuliani to turn over certain assets, including valuable sports memorabilia, to the women, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, last month. But Mr. Giuliani missed the deadline. Judge Lewis J. Liman of Federal District Court in Manhattan had set a new deadline of Friday for Mr. Giuliani to hand over the assets.

Earlier this month, the women’s lawyers were surprised to learn that Mr. Giuliani had moved most of his possessions to a storage facility two hours from Manhattan. It was not clear whether Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers knew about the move.

While his lawyers, Kenneth Caruso and David Labkowski, filed requests with the court on Wednesday to withdraw as his counsel in these proceedings, their reasons for doing so were redacted. They cited a professional ethics rule that stated lawyers could drop a client for a variety of reasons, including that the client was doing something his lawyer did not agree with. This step is also justified if the client makes it “unreasonably difficult” for his lawyers to do their jobs.

A spokesman for Mr. Giuliani said that the former mayor was not informed of his lawyers’ decisions before the court filing. But Mr. Caruso, in a court filing Thursday afternoon, said he had informed Mr. Giuliani of his decision to seek permission to withdraw as counsel on Wednesday by email, before he made his request to the court.

Ms. Freeman and Ms. Moss sued Mr. Giuliani for defamation in December 2021. Mr. Giuliani refused to cooperate with court filings throughout that case as well as during his time in bankruptcy court. At one point, the judge overseeing the trial in the District of Columbia to determine the judgment amount in the defamation case announced to the courtroom that Mr. Giuliani’s lawyer “has a hard job.”

Mr. Gaetz, who led the successful effort last fall to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, is one of the most reviled members of his conference. For two years, the Justice Department looked into allegations that he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and possibly violated federal sex trafficking laws. The department closed its investigation last year without filing any charges against Mr. Gaetz.

Still, the House Ethics Committee opened an inquiry in 2021 into the sexual misconduct allegations along with claims that Mr. Gaetz misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, accepted impermissible gifts under House rules, and shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, among other transgressions.

With his departure from Congress, the committee no longer has jurisdiction to investigate Mr. Gaetz. It was not immediately clear whether it would still release its findings. Tom Rust, the chief counsel and staff director for the panel, declined to comment.

Mr. Gaetz has tried to turn the allegations against him into a badge of honor. “I am the most investigated man in the United States Congress,” Mr. Gaetz said of the ethics inquiry when it began, insinuating that the inquiry was merely punishment for undermining Mr. McCarthy’s leadership.

Mr. Gaetz’s resignation complicates the math for House Republicans who are on the brink of winning control of the chamber. As of Wednesday night, 217 races had been called for Republicans, placing them tantalizingly close to the 218 needed for the majority. But with Mr. Gaetz departing, they will be down one seat from the start. They are already on track to have a tiny margin of control.

Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, announced Mr. Gaetz’s resignation at a news conference Wednesday night after House Republicans chose their leaders for the next Congress. Mr. Johnson said he had called Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida to start the process for scheduling a special election to fill the seat.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Johnson of his decision to tap Mr. Gaetz earlier in the day, shortly before he took the stage to briefly address and congratulate the Republican conference. In those remarks, Mr. Trump joked about poaching more House G.O.P. members for his administration.

“I have begged and pleaded with the new president, ‘Enough already, OK?’” Mr. Johnson told reporters. “Because our numbers are small.”

Earlier in the day, some of Mr. Gaetz’s colleagues made no secret of their joy to see him depart.

“Most people in there are giddy about it. Get him out of here,” said Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, speaking about his G.O.P. colleagues who were gathered to vote in leadership elections. He said Mr. Trump had plenty of other good options for nominees, but probably went with Mr. Gaetz to reward his loyalty.

Before Mr. Gaetz’s resignation was publicly announced, Mr. Miller suggested that if the Senate hearings unearthed new and convincing evidence that the misconduct allegations against Mr. Gaetz were true, his colleagues could expel him, as they did Representative George Santos late last year.

Mr. Miller said he and other House Republicans were shocked that Mr. Gaetz had agreed to participate in the Senate confirmation hearings, which involve rigorous and invasive background checks.

“I’m surprised that Matt would do this to himself,” Mr. Miller said. “I want to go get a big bag of popcorn and pull up a front-row seat to that show.”

Mr. Biggs’s lawyer, Norm Pattis, sent a letter to Mr. Trump on Wednesday requesting clemency for his client that opened by praising Mr. Trump for his “re-election to the presidency.” Mr. Pattis quickly pivoted to asking the president-elect for “a complete pardon” for Mr. Biggs, suggesting that exonerating Mr. Biggs would serve “the broader public interest” in much the same way that the clemency granted to thousands of Confederate supporters helped to heal the nation in the years that followed the Civil War.

“These are divisive times,” Mr. Pattis wrote. And he brought up the 2020 election, which many of Mr. Trump’s supporters were challenging on the day of the attack on the Capitol. “Suspicions and bitterness about the election lingers to this day,” he added.

“A pardon of Mr. Biggs,” Mr. Pattis went on, “will help close that wound and inspire confidence in the future.”

While Mr. Trump repeatedly promised during his recent campaign to pardon the more than 1,500 people charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack, his transition team has not yet put in place a formal policy about how to handle clemency requests like Mr. Biggs’s.

Many of the rioters, their families and some outside activists who have supported their cause have been pushing Mr. Trump and his allies to create a formal protocol that would offer a broad version of amnesty to the defendants.

Those who support such a move have privately expressed concern about hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters deluging the president-elect’s administration with pardon requests. They would rather see a systemic approach to the issue of pardons worked out in advance of Mr. Trump taking office.

“I’d go easy on marijuana, tough on Big Tech, and I would go after the deep state,” he added. “Wouldn’t that be a nice reversal?”

President-elect Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that he would nominate Mr. Gaetz to lead the Justice Department. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that Mr. Gaetz had already submitted his resignation letter.

The congressman gave his remarks at a conference sponsored by Turning Point, a nonprofit organization that has helped rally conservatives behind Mr. Trump, a month after Mr. Trump lost the presidential election to Joseph R. Biden. Mr. Gaetz disputed the results and told the gathering he wanted Congress to overturn them.

He also told the group what he thought was wrong with the operation of the Justice Department under President Biden.

“Sadly, it appears the people who perpetrated the Russia hoax against our president won’t face justice, and neither will the Biden crime family,” Mr. Gaetz said. “Because nobody at the Department of Justice thinks the way to move their career forward is to indict Hunter Biden.”

Mr. Gaetz turned out to be wrong on that.

In 2023, a federal grand jury indicted Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, for crimes related to a gun purchase. He was also charged with multiple tax violations while his father was president. Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies in the gun case and pleaded guilty to nine tax charges.

At another Turning Point conference, in 2022, Mr. Gaetz accused the F.B.I. of trying to manipulate public opinion by putting pressure on social media companies. “The F.B.I. has entire teams of people dedicated to try to shape public opinion on social media,” he said. “They want to control what you see so that they can ultimately control how you behave.

“This is not the proper role of government,” he said.

“Even without changing one regulation or one piece of guidance,” she said, “the sharing of misinformation from a place of power is concerning.”

Mr. Kennedy is a vocal vaccine skeptic and critic of the C.D.C., the nation’s public health agency. He has in the past promoted theories that suggest H.I.V. is not the true cause of AIDS, that 5G networks are being used for mass surveillance and that Black Americans in particular should avoid being vaccinated.

More recently, he has publicly contradicted the C.D.C.’s longstanding recommendation that communities fluoridate their water to protect against tooth decay. Mr. Kennedy has said Mr. Trump would advise municipalities to stop adding fluoride to their water systems.

Dr. Cohen said she hoped “we can all have a conversation with scientists who work on fluoride” to “make sure we’re all looking at the same set of data and evidence.”

She said that she had not yet heard from either Mr. Kennedy or anyone on the Trump transition team but that she hoped, as they moved from campaigning to governing, they would familiarize themselves with the C.D.C.’s work before passing judgment. “I look forward to engaging in a conversation about, ‘How do we protect the health of our communities?’” she said.

Mr. Trump has said he would let Mr. Kennedy “go wild on health.” What exactly that means in practice is unclear. Mr. Trump is said to be considering Mr. Kennedy for the position of secretary of health and human services, but given Mr. Kennedy’s unorthodox views — and the peculiar activities he has been associated with, like dumping a dead bear in Central Park and supposedly decapitating a whale — he might have difficulty gaining Senate confirmation.

The prospect of a second Trump administration, and Mr. Kennedy’s role in it, has rattled people in public health — in particular those at the C.D.C., the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. Last Wednesday, the day the presidential election was decided, Dr. Cohen acknowledged as much in a message to the agency’s roughly 12,000 employees.

“Depending on their perspective, I know folks are likely feeling an array of emotions today,” she wrote. “While the world may feel different with changes ahead — our mission has not changed. We are still privileged to wake up every day to protect health and improve lives.”

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, raised his eyebrows when reporters informed him of Mr. Trump’s choice.

“I’m still trying to absorb all this,” he said. Mr. Cornyn later told reporters: “I don’t really know him, other than his public persona.”

Mr. Gaetz, who has been one of Mr. Trump’s fiercest attack dogs on Capitol Hill, has routinely used his position on the House Judiciary Committee to question the motives of Justice Department officials and rail against what he has called the “deep state.” He was also investigated by the Justice Department for child sex trafficking, though Mr. Gaetz was never charged with any crimes.

But Mr. Gaetz, who was just re-elected to a fifth term, remains under ethics investigation for his conduct, which includes allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use; sharing inappropriate images or videos on the House floor; misusing state identification records; converting campaign funds to personal use; and accepting impermissible gifts under House rules. Mr. Gaetz has denied the allegations as political payback and said they are built on lies.

“The lawful, consensual sexual activities of adults are not the business of Congress,” he wrote in a letter posted to social media in September.

Several members of the House called for the Ethics Committee to release the findings of their investigation into Mr. Gaetz immediately, since the probe would close should Mr. Gaetz resign to take the post.

The allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use are likely to play a central role in his confirmation process.

“I was shocked by the announcement — that shows why the advice and consent process is so important,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who has sometimes clashed with Mr. Trump. “I’m sure that there will be a lot of questions raised at his hearing.”

“I don’t think he’s a serious candidate,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who also has broken with Mr. Trump frequently, said of Mr. Gaetz.

Even some of Mr. Trump’s stalwart supporters declined to offer support.

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, refused to speak specifically about Mr. Gaetz’s candidacy, repeating that he was looking forward to all of Mr. Trump’s nominees receiving confirmation hearings and getting the president-elect’s cabinet in place.

Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa and a former chair of the Judiciary Committee, stood expressionless as reporters asked him if he had any concerns about Gaetz, refusing to answer.

Democrats seized on the nomination and the G.O.P.’s discomfort, arguing that their votes on Mr. Gaetz’s nomination would serve as a litmus test for whether Republicans would be willing to stand up to the president-elect to safeguard the institutions of federal government.

“The key question is whether they will have the backbone and respect for justice — it’s that simple,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said of Senate Republicans. “This nomination will probably be the first test of their integrity.”

Mr. Trump has called on Senate Republicans to allow him to circumvent the confirmation process by calling recesses during which he could install personnel without Senate approval. It was not clear whether Senator John Thune, the South Dakota Republican elected as majority leader on Wednesday, would be willing to do so for Mr. Gaetz, or other nominees who might struggle to draw enough support to be confirmed.

At least one Senate Republican indicated he viewed Gaetz’s nomination favorably.

“He’s smart — clever guy,” Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said of Mr. Gaetz, adding: “I usually support presidential picks to be in their cabinet. I’ve done that for both sides. That’s my disposition.”

Luke Broadwater, Carl Hulse, Maya C. Miller and Annie Karni contributed reporting.

On Wednesday, at least, the nation’s 46th president was determined to uphold the traditions that have long surrounded a peaceful transfer of power — offering to do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, have what you need” — even if they were traditions that Mr. Trump refused to extend to him four years earlier.

Mr. Trump responded as they posed in front of a roaring fireplace in the Oval Office: “I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as you can get.”

Up until less than two weeks ago, the president-elect regularly derided Mr. Biden as weak, infirm and demented. On Wednesday, he referred to the president merely as “Joe,” offering his appreciation for the gracious hospitality.

It was a remarkable half minute, followed by a closed-door meeting of the two men, along with their chiefs of staff, that lasted almost two hours. But beneath the public disguise, both men were dealing with starkly different realities.

For Mr. Trump, it was a heady, I-told-you-so moment of political resurrection after a defeat he had never really accepted. And for Mr. Biden and his staff, it was a grim, how-is-this-happening day that left them feeling defeated and in despair.

“Rough day,” one senior aide texted during the meeting, summing up the mood in the West Wing, where Mr. Trump’s new team will soon take over.

Encounters like these are always fraught with tension, placing two rivals next to each other trying to be civil after they had spent months tearing each other down. Herbert Hoover was angry that Franklin D. Roosevelt would not sign onto his approach to the Great Depression during the transition. Jimmy Carter was unimpressed that Ronald Reagan did not take notes during their post-election meeting.

Eight years ago, the stage was set for a similarly contentious meeting between President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump, then the president-elect.

Mr. Trump had spent years stoking the birther lie that Mr. Obama had been born outside the United States, which would make him ineligible to be president. Mr. Obama had mocked Mr. Trump mercilessly. When the two men greeted each other, they were surprisingly cordial. But the graciousness between the two men was a show, and did not last. Mr. Trump never sought Mr. Obama’s counsel and the four years of Mr. Trump’s presidency only deepened Mr. Obama’s animosity.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump might have been expected to bury the tradition of fake graciousness.

It was Mr. Trump, after all, who shrugged off the traditional meeting in 2020, consumed by his false denial of Mr. Biden’s victory. On Wednesday, the two men sat just feet from where Mr. Trump had watched the Capitol being ransacked by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Congressional investigators later documented that he had done little to intervene or prevent the violence, watching it unfold for hours on the televisions he had installed.

When Mr. Biden was inaugurated 14 days later, Mr. Trump did not greet him at the White House, ride with him to the Capitol or take his seat on the stage. Instead, he flew on Marine One from the White House to a jet waiting to take him to his Florida estate.

For Mr. Biden, there was plenty of reason to return the favor as he sat next to the ultimate Washington bomb-thrower.

Yet the president is the ultimate institutionalist, having served in Washington for nearly a half-century. He had pitched his candidacy in 2020 as a return to the norms and principles of good behavior that had guided past presidents of both parties. It would have been out of character for Mr. Biden to act the way Mr. Trump had four years earlier — even if he wanted to.

Instead, his message to the president-elect was a simple one: “Welcome. Welcome back.”

Those final words by Mr. Biden were a subtle acknowledgment of his own failure to prevent what he had long said was a threat to the core of American democracy: a return to power by Mr. Trump. For his part, the president-elect made his own oblique reference to their differences.

“Thank you very much,” he said. “And politics is tough, and it’s in many cases, not a very nice world. But it is a nice world today and I appreciate very much a transition that’s so smooth, it’ll be as smooth as you can get. And I very much appreciate that, Joe.”

Mr. Biden responded: “You’re welcome.”

Following the meeting, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said the discussion between the two men had been “cordial,” “gracious” and “substantive.” She said a number of topics had been discussed, including national security and domestic policy. She said Mr. Trump had come with a detailed set of questions for Mr. Biden.

She did not go into detail about the conversation, but said the president had come with his own list, including reminding Mr. Trump of things that remain on the congressional to-do list, including funding the government and passing relief for recent disasters.

After he left the White House, Mr. Trump called the New York Post to describe it. He said that “we got to know each other again” while discussing issues like the war in Ukraine.

“I wanted — I asked for his views and he gave them to me,” Mr. Trump said, according to The Post. “Also, we talked very much about the Middle East, likewise. I wanted to know his views on where we are and what he thinks. And he gave them to me, he was very gracious.”

Before the White House meeting, Mr. Trump began his day in Washington in more obviously friendly territory: a gathering of Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Mr. Trump was received in a closed-door meeting near the Capitol by jubilant House Republicans, who gave him a standing ovation as he took the stage and delivered triumphant remarks centered around his own electoral victory.

Mr. Trump, 78, who is limited to two terms as president by the Constitution, said, “I suspect I won’t be running again.”

Then he joked: “Unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out.’”

Here are five things to know about her.

Championed Conservative Cultural Issues

Since becoming governor in 2019, Ms. Noem has taken on significant cultural issues, particularly around transgender rights. In 2022, she signed a law prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in school sports that match their gender identity.

Her supporters believed this protected women’s sports, while critics saw it as discriminatory. Ms. Noem also fought critical race theory, an academic theory that argues that historical patterns of racism are ingrained in law and modern institutions. She pushed for a law to restrict its teaching in South Dakota schools, and when that failed, she signed an executive order to limit it.

Fought Pandemic Shutdowns

During the coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Noem emphasized individual freedoms and economic concerns. South Dakota was known for having the fewest restrictions of any state, with neither a mask mandate nor significant limits on businesses.

According to data from the South Dakota Department of Health, there were a number of surges in cases in the state. Critics argued that her policies had contributed to higher infection rates. Her supporters praised her for keeping businesses open and the economy stable.

Despite South Dakota’s high per capita death toll, the state held the Sturgis motorcycle rally in August 2020, which attracted nearly 500,000 attendees.

Republicans in the state argued that the governor’s resistance to shutdowns played a key role in maintaining one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. Supporters believe this approach not only helped maintain tourism but also made the state increasingly attractive to new residents.

Angered Native American Tribes

In 2019, the Oglala Sioux Tribe declared Ms. Noem unwelcome on the Pine Ridge Reservation after she supported a state law intended to limit protests similar to those during the Dakota Access Pipeline demonstrations in 2016. The tribe’s president issued a warning that ignoring this directive could result in her banishment from their lands.

Ms. Noem also faced criticism from another tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux, over Fourth of July fireworks at Mount Rushmore, a site the tribe regards as a desecration of territory historically taken from them.

Tribal leaders in South Dakota criticized Ms. Noem this year for pushing a narrative that Mexican cartels were running rampant in the state’s tribal nations.

Deployed South Dakota Troops to Border

As governor, Ms. Noem took several anti-immigration steps. She opposed accepting Afghan refugees in 2021, and, in a notable move, sent members of the South Dakota National Guard to Texas to assist with border efforts, funded by private donations.

While she argued the action was necessary to support states that were struggling with immigration challenges, critics viewed it as a political stunt that used state resources for national partisan aims.

Penned Murky Memoir

In a memoir published this year, Ms. Noem wrote about her exposure to foreign leaders and stated that dealing with them took “resolve, preparation and determination.”

She faced widespread criticism from her political opponents because of another anecdote she included in the memoir, in which she described killing a family dog she called “untrainable” and “dangerous.” Many people have speculated that this story led to her chances of being Mr. Trump’s running mate to quickly deteriorate.

In the pre-publication version of the book, Ms. Noem wrote about meeting with Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, during her tenure in Congress. She recounted her experience staring down “little tyrants.”

The claim stirred controversy and prompted questions from news outlets that had obtained early copies of the memoir. While avoiding direct responses to questions about whether the meeting occured, Ms. Noem said the anecdote should not have been in the book and the text would be updated before publication.