Kacey Musgraves responds to Kristi Noem after her appearance at Talarico concert

Country music singer Kacey Musgraves took aim at Kristi Noem Monday night after the former Homeland Security secretary publicly criticized her for meeting Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico at a recent concert.

The Grammy Award-winning artist briefly entered the world of politics after Noem blasted Talarico for attending her concert in Dallas on Saturday. In a social media post, Talarico thanked Musgraves for welcoming him, and the two were photographed together.

“I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day,” Noem, who is also the former governor of South Dakota, wrote Monday on X. “And if I choose Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico.”

In Noem’s post, she compared Musgraves to another country music artist, Ella Langley, who seems to have broken away.

“I don’t think you have a dog in this fight, but if you did, you would have put him down,” Musgraves responded, referencing a story from Noem’s 2024 memoir in which she revealed she shot and killed her family dog, Cricket. Noem wrote that she shot the dog, which she described as “a trained assassin,” after killing a group of chickens.