Kacey Musgraves turned Kristi Noem’s Texas Senate race shade into a brutal reminder of the former governor’s infamous dog-killing memoir story.
The fight started when Democrat James Talarico posted smiling concert photos with Musgraves, pulling the “Dry Spell” singer into a Senate contest that already had Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on the other side.
Noem made her pick by turning the race into a country-music comparison. “I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day,” Noem wrote on X, tagging “Choosin’ Texas” singer Ella Langley.
“And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico,” the former South Dakota governor continued.
I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day.
And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico. pic.twitter.com/sD9yzSF955
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) October 12, 2026
Musgraves fired back to her X followers with one sentence. “I don’t think you have a dog in this fight,” Musgraves wrote, “but if you did you would have shot it.”
The dig went straight to the most infamous passage from Noem’s 2024 book, “No Going Back,” where she wrote about taking Cricket, her 14-month-old German wirehaired pointer, to a gravel pit on her property and shooting the dog.
Noem’s post landed while Musgraves was already stacking up politically charged concert moments.
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At American Airlines Center on Sunday, Musgraves lingered on the next day’s holiday as the Dallas crowd booed Columbus Day and corrected her with Indigenous People’s Day.
“Tomorrow’s Monday? … Ew, that’s right, wait, it’s Columbus Day? It’s what now?” Musgraves asked as the audience booed and corrected her, saying it was Indigenous People’s Day.
Kacey Musgraves goes on unhinged Christopher Columbus rant:
“Obviously, F*ck Columbus — Literally the lamest person to probably ever exist… You’re a loser Christopher Columbus. We hate you.” pic.twitter.com/Yyx9n0jH8c
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) October 13, 2026
The singer then made Columbus himself the target. “Yeah, no yeah yeah, actually, obviously f— Columbus. Literally the lamest person to probably ever exist. Like for real. What a loser,” she said. “You’re a loser, Christopher Columbus, we hate you!”
Columbus is honored for Atlantic voyages that opened European exploration in the Americas, while activists and academics have focused on his treatment of Indigenous people and the colonization that followed.
Musgraves’ tour had already moved into immigration politics before the Columbus comments.
On opening night in August, she turned her birthday wish into a request for donations to the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, telling fans the group helps children whose parents had been deported “unfairly.”
“It’s a wonderful organization, and they help give aid — legal aid — and money to children whose parents have been deported unfairly,” Musgraves said. “It’s not a political thing. It’s just, these kids need help.”
The Young Center, based in Chicago, pairs volunteers with attorneys and social workers for unaccompanied and separated immigrant children in government custody, with family unity, release from custody, fair proceedings and children’s best interests.
Some X users answered the immigration plea with boycott threats after the Chicago show.
“You just earned yourself a big ol’ boycott, you traitor. Illegal aliens and their kids don’t deserve our patronage and neither do you,” one user wrote.
“I’m deporting Musgraves from all my music playlists,” another user replied.
That Chicago stop also put Musgraves atop a giant disco ball shaped like hanging testicles, giving her a chance to crack a joke about the prop while her grandmother watched from the crowd.
“It takes a lot of balls to get up here and do what I do every night. It takes two gigantic, anatomically correct sparkly balls,” she said.
“I’ve actually got my Nana in the house tonight, and she always told me, ‘Honey, if you’re gonna do something, do it big, do it sparkly.’ Nana is this what you had in mind?” Musgraves added, according to Whiskey Riff.
In July, Musgraves objected on Instagram after Texas approved school rules that put Bible passages into public-school lessons.
She posted a Dallas Morning News headline reading, “Bible passages will be taught in Texas public schools,” and added her own caption over the story.
“The bible being forced by people who don’t even follow it themselves. smfh. This is simply indoctrination and it’s not okay,” Musgraves wrote.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield took the opposite route Saturday night at the Las Vegas Sphere, telling fans his band had come to play, not preach.
“Unless you live in Vegas, you’ve come a long way to spend some time with Metallica,” Hetfield said in a video shared on YouTube. “We’re grateful for that — your travels, the money you spend, the time it took, thanks for coming to celebrate with us.”
“I just gotta say, Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bulls—, OK?,” Hetfield continued.
“We are here … no bulls— … we’re here to forget about all the outside s—, OK?” he added. “Metallica’s agenda is love, energy and heavy music, baby!”
Hetfield had made the same case in a 2017 interview with the Chilean newspaper La Tercera, when Donald Trump was president and the Metallica singer declined to give his opinion of him.
“Everyone has an opinion about Donald Trump, I think. My opinion stays with me,” Hetfield said.
For Hetfield, politics could split an audience before the music had a chance to connect.
“I’m a singer and guitar player in a rock band,” Hetfield continued.
“I hate politics,” he added. “I don’t want to talk about politics. That separates people, and I want to connect them with music. I prefer to stay out of all that, because it polarizes people, because if I say ‘I love Trump’ or ‘I hate Trump,’ someone can say ‘then I don’t like his music anymore,’ which is very silly.”