During MSNBC’s coverage of President Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday, MSNBC Correspondent Cal Perry stated that Trump “made this all about patriotism” and defending America’s history “with no sense of irony, in the Black Hills, a place that is Native American land.”
Perry said, “For the indigenous community here, this is sacred land. This was their land given to them in 1868, not that it had to be given to them. They were here. But the U.S. government, in 1868, signs a treaty, and then, in less than ten years, violates that treaty, basically, because of gold. … This is something that they have now been fighting for 150 years and fought for it today on this road, on the day in which the president called Andrew Jackson a ‘great’ man. And you can understand a little bit how upset people are, and for very good reasons. Contrast that, of course, with what we saw three, four years ago, at the Keystone Pipeline in North Dakota, where Donald Trump put down those protests forcefully. The new president in office puts down these protests forcefully on a Native American reservation where there’s a pipeline running through. So, this is not new for this community. I think people have felt this for a long time.”
He continued, “This president has made his position clear on these issues. He’s highlighted it tonight by, again, calling President Andrew Jackson ‘the great Andrew Jackson.’ It’s not clear to me what his strategy is in widening his support. I mean, I don’t know how you widen your support with this sort of talk. But, he loves the symbolic nature of these fireworks. We’ve seen that throughout his presidency. That’s what he’s playing for, and he made this all about patriotism. Tonight was all about patriotism and defending American history. He did it with no sense of irony, in the Black Hills, a place that is Native American land.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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