President Donald Trump, right, meets
with Navajo Code Talkers Peter
MacDonald, center, and Thomas Begay,
left, as the portrait of President
Andrew Jackson, chiefly responsible
for the 1838-39 Indian Removal Act
hangs in the Oval Office of the
White House in Washington, Monday,
Nov. 27, 2017. (Photo: Susan Walsh,
AP)
Families
of
Navajo
Code
Talkers
decry
Trump’s
political
jab By
FELICIA
FONSECA
and
LAURIE
KELLMAN
FLAGSTAFF,
Ariz. -
Families
of
Navajo
war
veterans
who were
honored
Monday
at the
White
House
say they
were
dumbfounded
that
President
Donald
Trump
used the
event to
take a
political
jab at a
Massachusetts
senator,
demeaning
their
work
with an
unbreakable
code
that
helped
the U.S.
win
World
War II.
Trump
turned
to a
nickname
he often
deployed
for
Democratic
Sen.
Elizabeth
Warren
during
the 2016
presidential
campaign:
Pocahontas.
He then
told the
three
Navajo
Code
Talkers
on stage
that he
had
affection
for them
that he
doesn’t
have for
Warren.
“It
was
uncalled
for,”
said
Marty
Thompson,
whose
great
uncle
was a
Navajo
Code
Talker.
“He can
say what
he wants
when
he’s out
doing
his
presidential
business
among
his
people,
but when
it comes
to
honoring
veterans
or any
kind of
people,
he needs
to grow
up and
quit
saying
things
like
that.”
Pocahontas
is a
well-known
historical
figure
who
bridged
her own
Pamunkey
Tribe in
present-day
Virginia
with the
British
in the
1600s.
But the
National
Congress
of
American
Indians
says
Trump
wrongly
has
flipped
the name
into a
derogatory
term,
and the
comment
drew
swift
criticism
from
American
Indians
and
politicians.
White
House
spokeswoman
Sarah
Huckabee
Sanders,
asked
about
criticism
of
Trump’s
remarks,
said a
racial
slur
“was
certainly
not the
president’s
intent.”
President
Donald
Trump
used an
event
honoring
Native
American
veterans
Monday
to take
a shot
at
Democratic
Sen.
Elizabeth
Warren,
whom he
has long
derided
as
“Pocahontas.”
(Nov.
27)
Trump
made the
comment
as he
stood
near a
portrait
of
President
Andrew
Jackson,
which he
hung in
the Oval
Office
in
January.
Trump
admires
Jackson’s
populism.
But
Jackson
is an
unpopular
figure
in
Indian
Country
because
his
policies
led to
the
forced
removal
of
American
Indians
out of
their
southern
homelands.
The
Navajo
Nation
suggested
Trump’s
remark
Monday
was an
example
of
“cultural
insensitivity”
and
resolved
to stay
out of
the
“ongoing
feud
between
the
senator
and
President
Trump.”
“All
tribal
nations
still
battle
insensitive
references
to our
people.
The
prejudice
that
Native
American
people
face is
an
unfortunate
historical
legacy,”
Navajo
Nation
President
Russell
Begaye
said in
a
statement.
Still,
Begaye
and
relatives
of
Navajo
Code
Talkers
said
they’re
honored
the
story of
the men
recruited
from the
vast
Southwest
reservation
to
become
Marines
could be
told on
a
national
stage.
Peter
MacDonald,
a former
Navajo
chairman
and
trained
Code
Talker
who
stood
beside
Trump,
also
took the
opportunity
to ask
for
support
for a
Navajo
Code
Talker
museum.
Trump
obliged.
MacDonald
didn’t
immediately
return
messages
left
Monday
by The
Associated
Press.
He
didn’t
visibly
react to
Trump’s
“Pocahontas”
comment
and
later
told the
president
he was
certain
he would
succeed,
crediting
military
generals.
Michael
Smith, a
Marine
whose
father
was a
Code
Talker,
said
most of
the Code
Talkers
would be
skeptical
about
going to
the
White
House
because
it could
be
construed
to mean
they
support
a
political
cause.
“So,
why did
they go?
Why were
they
there?
He’s
putting
them in
the Oval
Office
to say
‘You did
a good
job, and
say hi
to
Pocahontas?’”
Smith
said.
“They
should
be taken
care of
as
heroes,
not as
pawns.”
Michael
Nez,
whose
father
helped
develop
the code
based on
the
Navajo
language,
said his
father
would
have
been
upset to
hear
Trump’s
Pocahontas
comment.
But, as
other
Code
Talker
relatives
said,
his
father
was
taught
to
respect
the
president
as the
commander
in
chief.
“It’s
too bad
he does
put his
foot in
his
mouth,”
Nez
said.
“Why he
does it?
I don’t
know.”
Helena
Begaii
said her
94-year-old
Navajo
Code
Talker
father,
Samuel
T.
Holiday,
declined
an
invitation
to the
White
House on
Monday.
She said
he would
have a
better
feel for
what
happened
once he
reads
the
newspaper.
“I
feel
really
sad that
they
didn’t
get
treated
with
respect,”
she
said.
Trump’s
Pocahontas
comment
is the
latest
in a
long
list of
remarks
Trump
has made
about
people
from
specific
ethnic
and
racial
groups.
In
announcing
a run
for the
presidency
in 2015,
Trump
said
many
Mexican
immigrants
are
rapists.
He’s
sought
to ban
immigrants
from
certain
Muslim
majority
nations.
He’s
come
under
fire for
what
some
said was
a
too-slow
federal
response
to
hurricane
damage
in
Puerto
Rico.
The
president
has long
feuded
with
Warren,
an
outspoken
Wall
Street
critic
who
leveled
blistering
attacks
on Trump
during
the
campaign.
Trump
seized
on
questions
about
Warren’s
heritage,
which
surfaced
during
her 2012
Senate
race
challenging
incumbent
Republican
Sen.
Scott
Brown.
Warren
said in
an
interview
on MSNBC
that,
unfortunately,
Trump
cannot
make it
through
a
ceremony
honoring
heroes
“without
having
to throw
out a
racial
slur.”
New
Mexico
Sen. Tom
Udall,
vice
chairman
of the
Indian
Affairs
committee,
added:
“Donald
Trump’s
latest
racist
joke —
during
Native
American
Heritage
Month no
less —
demeaned
the
contributions
that the
Code
Talkers
and
countless
other
Native
American
patriots
and
citizens
have
made to
our
great
country.”