This past weekend, Kacey Musgraves played shows in her home state of Texas, and during a stop at Dallas’ American Airlines Center, she had Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico there as a surprise guest.
Talarico, who recently went missing for 12 days on the campaign trail, was recently endorsed by fellow Texan and country music star, Willie Nelson.
Kacey has never been shy about her political views and the fact that, much like Willie Nelson, she is very much a left-leaning Texan. She’s definitely not one of those artists who believes singers should just shut up and sing… and that’s her prerogative.
Personally, I pretty much can’t stand politicians of any kind, but someone’s political views, if they are different from mine, has never stopped me from listening to music I love… and I think a lot of people who don’t feel that way miss out on great music, but I digress…
After Talarico’s appearance at Kacey’s show made headlines, Kristi Noem obviously saw what happened and she came for Kacey, and even dragged Ella Langley into the ordeal, saying she would take “Ella over Kacey any day,” and that she would also “take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.”
Noem is currently servicing as the U.S. Special Envoy for the Shield of the Americas, and she previously served as the 8th United States Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) under President Trump from January 2025 until March 2026, and she was the 33rd Governor of South Dakota from 2019 to 2025:
“I’ll take Ella Langley over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.”
Ella actually untagged herself from the post, and I can’t say that I blame her for not wanting to get wrapped up in politics, especially when she had nothing to do with any of this.
But Kacey is no shrinking violet when it comes to her political views, and had quite the comeback for Noem.
“I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it.”
You’ve probably heard the story Kacey referenced in that post, which went viral in April of 2024 after Noem revealed her memoir, No Going Back, that she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog, Cricket.
The incident happened over 20 years ago, and Noem said she was trying to train the dog as a pheasant-hunting dog. She wrote about how Cricket was “untrainable,” and ruined a hunting trip by chasing birds, escaped her truck to attack and kill a neighbor’s chickens, and then bit Noem when she tried to restrain the dog.
Noem said she “hated” the dog, and she admitted she took her to a gravel area of her property and shot her.
Honestly I still can’t believe she revealed all of that in her book for the world to know… that’s just so wild to me. Firstly, it’s an awful story and a really sad way to treat a dog. But while Noem is obviously used to people coming for her, being a politician and all, I don’t think you can really say anything else to Kacey after that response.
Noem is no stranger to personal controversy in the news, I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines about her husband, but speaking of Kacey’s shows in Texas, what we really should be talking about is the fact that Kacey brought out Miranda Lambert as a surprise guest in Austin to sing their duet “Horses and Divorces”: