The leaders of a Connecticut American Indian tribe are accusing Donald Trump’s presidential campaign of disrespecting Native Americans. In a statement released on Thursday, the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation calls Trump’s campaign tactics and behavior bigoted and ignorant.
Members of Connecticut’s Mashantucket Pequot Tribe own the Foxwoods Resort Casino. They’ve had issues with Trump ever since he made these remarks at a Congressional hearing in 1993, 10 years after Congress had granted the tribe federal recognition.
“They don’t look like Indians to me. And they don’t look like Indians to Indians. When you go up to Connecticut and a lot of people are laughing at it, and you are telling how tough it is, how rough it is, to get approved. When you go up to Connecticut and you look, now, they don’t look like Indians to me sir.”
Pequot Tribal Chairman Rodney Butler says he’s concerned that Trump, who’s now the presumptive Republican nominee, and his supporters continue to show disrespect to Native Americans by using fake war chants at rallies.
“Just because it might benefit some folks in his party to do war chanting and hooting and hollering to make fun of someone that may or may not have Native American ancestry, it’s not right.”
Butler is a Democratic delegate who is supporting Hillary Clinton at the national convention, but he says his tribe’s concerns are not partisan. He says tribal members have supported both Democratic and Republican candidates in past elections.
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