Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem criticized the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Monday for accusing President Donald Trump of “glorifying white supremacy” by celebrating Independence Day with a rally at Mount Rushmore.
The DNC tweeted Monday, “Trump has disrespected Native communities time and again. He’s attempted to limit their voting rights and blocked critical pandemic relief. Now he’s holding a rally glorifying white supremacy at Mount Rushmore, a region once sacred to tribal communities.”
The DNC later deleted the tweet.
“The DNC is doing a great disservice to this country,” Noem said in a Monday interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
“Honestly, that tweet right there represents the choice that people have in this election.” (RELATED: COULTER: Get Ready To See Trump’s Face On Mount Rushmore)
“The men on that mountain,” she began, speaking about the four presidents. “Washington was the only leader that we’ve had [who] unanimously was chosen to lead our country at its birth. He was the one that everybody agreed that we needed at that important time,” she said, moving to Thomas Jefferson, whom she said “gave us ‘that all men are created equal.’ He wrote the Declaration of Independence, incredibly important to the values we hold in this country.”
Referring to Abraham Lincoln, Noem said, “He made it happen. He put into reality the fact ‘that all men are created equal.’”
Reserving her final comments for Theodore Roosevelt, she reminded viewers that he was the first president to dine with an “African American at the White House,” adding that he had “an adventurous spirit.”
“We just really appreciate their leadership,” the governor said.
U.S. presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are sculpted on Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, U.S. in this U.S. National Park Service photo taken on Apr. 12, 2013. Courtesy NPS/Handout via REUTERS.
Native American activists are expected to protest Trump’s visit to the historic sculpture on Friday and have called Mount Rushmore a symbol of white supremacy as well as a reminder that the federal government in the late 1800s removed indigenous people from their historic homelands to reservations.
The work was created by sculptor Gutzon Borglum from 1927-41. (RELATED: Whoopi Goldberg Is Ready To See More Faces On Mount Rushmore)
Hoover Institution Professor Victor Davis Hanson suggested last Monday the people who are toppling statues or demanding that they be removed wouldn’t travel to Mount Rushmore with the same thought in mind.
“So if you’re going to take down Teddy Roosevelt at the National Museum [in New York City], why don’t you go to Mount Rushmore and blow Teddy Roosevelt up? You don’t want to do that because the people in that area of the Dakotas might resist,” he told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”