South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was hit with a lawsuit accusing her of “misleading and deceptive advertising” after she posted a viral dental endorsement video on social media earlier this week.
Travelers United, a consumer advocacy group, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
“Travelers United sued South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem for failing to properly disclose a medical tourism advertisement that she posted on all of her personal social media platforms,” reads a description of the suit shared to the advocacy group’s website, which grouped it under legal claims related to “travel influencers.”
Noem — a Republican who for a time seemed poised to enter the 2024 presidential race and has billed herself as a potential vice presidential pick for former President Donald Trump as he campaigns for his own reelection — faced backlash as well as widespread scrutiny after initially sharing the video on Monday night. The governor herself starred in the promotional clip, which was styled like a typical infomercial and saw her giving praise to “the team at Smile Texas,” a cosmetic dental office, for performing a procedure that Noem praised for fixing her teeth and giving her a smile that she said she “can be proud of.”
“I love my new family at Smile Texas!” Noem captioned the video clip on X, formerly Twitter. “The video says it all, and I am so grateful for their help fixing my smile for me.”
An Instagram post by Smile Texas, which included the video of Noem, referred to her as a “gracious leading lady” who “just received an executive, feminine, beautiful smile here at Smile Texas.” Noem said she sought the dental procedure because of a biking accident several years ago that knocked out some of her teeth.
The lawsuit alleges that Noem, in sharing the Smile Texas plug to her personal social accounts without any sort of label, “advertised a product or service without disclosing that she has a financial relationship with that company.” It also accuses the governor of violating a Federal Trade Commission requirement that social posts disclose whether they are advertisements or not with a marker that says, “Ad.”
“Governor Kristi Noem is the Governor of South Dakota for a living but seems to have taken up work as a social media influencer as of March 12, 2024,” the lawsuit says.
CBS News contacted Noem’s office for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
The lawsuit came as North Dakota State Sen. Reynold Nesiba, a Democrat, called for an investigation into Noem’s viral dental video, the Associated Press reported. Nesiba asked the co-chairs of the state legislature’s Government Operations and Audit Committee to add the issue of Noem’s alleged advertisement to the agenda for their next meeting in July, according to the outlet.
“This informercial raises a number of questions,” Nesiba wrote Wednesday in a post on social media.