# What's up with Trump and Native Americans?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Tags:** trump
**Created:** [July 28, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429 "2025-07-28T15:16:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/21 "2025-07-28T19:37:07Z")
Would they be happier buying into the theory that they [hitchhiked on ice floes from Europe?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis)
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/22 "2025-07-28T19:37:25Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> > [@dolphinboy](#):
> >
> > BTW, how can someone be more “American” than a 100% native American?
>
> They’re Asian immigrants who snuck over via a concealed ‘land bridge’ to avoid coming in through official ports of entry and applying for citizenship to the United States of America.
That I think is a bigger factor than the obstacle to mineral extraction and pipelines. Native Americans aren’t descended from proper white European Christians, so are no better than Hispanics, Muslims, and Blacks. It’s all about the cult of white supremacy.
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### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/23 "2025-07-28T19:44:12Z")
Certainly the implied racial superiority appeals to White Christian Nationalists but for people who want to create an isolationist petrostate hermit kingdom that doesn’t have any foreign dependencies, vilifying the people who are objecting to resource extraction and burning hydrocarbons is a strategic move to eliminate opposition.
Stranger
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### Author:  [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/24 "2025-07-28T20:25:28Z")
and don’t forget (re)naming Mt Denali
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/25 "2025-07-28T20:34:02Z")
He probably thinks that they didn’t immigrate with a proper visa and are therefore illegal.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 28, 2025, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/26 "2025-07-28T21:04:06Z")
At least President McKinley didn’t do the indigenous Alaskans any deliberate dirt.
President William McKinley High School, Hawaii Department of Education, OTOH…
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/27 "2025-07-29T00:58:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> What made it something Trump got upset about this month?
I must have missed something. I’m with @Darren\_Garison in that the only recent Trump reference to native American that I recall was the team name idiocy. Do you have a cite of what you are talking about in particular?
However, I would say its also that Native American issues is practically a poster child for everything that the right claims is wrong with DEI. Due to the complicated history between the US and indigenous tribes, there are a lot of legislation that specifically singles out Native Americans. So that makes them an easy target to claim the law is racist against whites.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/28 "2025-07-29T03:44:31Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> I must have missed something. I’m with @Darren\_Garison in that the only recent Trump reference to native American that I recall was the team name idiocy. Do you have a cite of what you are talking about in particular?
> **[Ann Coulter Draws Outrage Over Vile Post About Killing Native Americans](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ann-coulter-didnt-kill-enough-indians_n_686c4d80e4b086b32e2417ad)**
>
> The right-wing pundit's comment was low, even by her standards.
> **[Commentary: With Manifest Destiny art, DHS goes hard on 'white makes right'](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-26/dhs-manifest-destiny-american-progress-painting)**
>
> The Heritage American movement maintains that those Americans whose ancestors have been here for generations are more deserving of this nation’s riches than those of us whose families came over within living memory.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/29 "2025-07-29T04:20:10Z")
TBH, I’m having trouble thinking of any President that didn’t hate Native Americans. in action if not in words. Trump just seems more vocal about it … the new Andrew Jackson.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/30 "2025-07-29T04:28:15Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> TBH, I’m having trouble thinking of any President that didn’t hate Native Americans. in action if not in words. Trump just seems more vocal about it … the new Andrew Jackson
Really? Can you give examples of how Joe Biden or Barack Obama hated Native Americans? I’ll accept either actions or words as evidence.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/31 "2025-07-29T04:57:17Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> BTW, how can someone be more “American” than a 100% native American?
By being white, and therefore human. Native Americans aren’t white and are therefore soulless, devil-worshiping subhumans who exist to be exploited or killed by actual human beings.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/32 "2025-07-29T05:03:19Z")
Well, that must’ve made for some tense moments between Herbert Hoover and his VP
Anyway… last year Biden awarded Jim Thorpe the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Two years after his Olympic medals were restored. If MAGA takes that away out of spite, then I hope the hair under every red cap should be lifted.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/33 "2025-07-29T05:39:27Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Well, that must’ve made for some tense moments between Herbert Hoover and his VP
I’m ashamed to admit I’d never heard of Charles Curtis until now (he was a Kaw).
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/34 "2025-07-29T06:17:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> Really? Can you give examples of how Joe Biden or Barack Obama hated Native Americans? I’ll accept either actions or words as evidence.
Let’s call it benign neglect. At least they didn’t send smallpox-laden blankets to the reservations. But can you name one president that actively tried to help the Native American situation?
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/35 "2025-07-29T06:33:57Z")
He was enrolled in the Kaw, based on the majority of his matrilineal line, but there was also Osage there.
The Osage were an interesting tribe, their full history glossed-over in the Martin Scorsese movie. Sioux people, but distinct from the Dakota Sioux who were happy to live on wild rice from the lakes of Wisconsin and Minnesota until the Ojibwa, greedy for the beavers that they could sell to the Whites, pushed them out onto the Plains where they grabbed the descendants of horses set free by the Pueblos and ran rampant over the Northern Plains. The Osage had already made that move, by choice more than coercion, and held their own against the Comanche. No small accomplishment.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/36 "2025-07-29T12:15:19Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> BTW, how can someone be more “American” than a 100% native American?
“We know everyone can’t be….as American as we….(after all, we came over on the Mayflower!)”
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Well, that must’ve made for some tense moments between Herbert Hoover and his VP
Or Woodrow Wilson and his second wife.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/37 "2025-07-29T12:55:06Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#):
>
> Or Woodrow Wilson and his second wife.
I had to look that one up, too!
This example, while interesting, is more of a stretch. Edith Wilson, née Bolling, was from a wealthy plantation family whose ancestors included Pocahontas, but she didn’t look, self-identify, or have deep childhood cultural experiences with Indians the way Curtis did.
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2025, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/38 "2025-07-29T14:21:30Z")
Nancy Reagan was also descended from Pocahontas. (As was Sam the bartender on Gunsmoke)
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2025, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/39 "2025-07-30T05:44:59Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> Let’s call it benign neglect.
But you didn’t say benign neglect. You said every President hated Native Americans.
So can you present some evidence of how Joe Biden or Barack Obama hated Native Americans?
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2025, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-up-with-trump-and-native-americans/1021429/40 "2025-07-30T05:56:22Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> Let’s call it benign neglect.
Let’s call it you being wrong about Biden and Obama hating Native Americans.
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