Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tried to get the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla
Indians to enter into a casino partnership, The Washington Post reports.
Trump himself went to tribal headquarters in Palm Springs, California, in early 1993 and promised a "first-class" casino but nothing ever happened, according to the paper. The tribe went on to start its own successful gaming enterprise.
Yet later that year Trump went on the attack against Indian gaming. He told the House Subcommittee on Native American Affairs on October 5, 1993 that reservations were a hotbed of organized crime, an accusation that hasn't panned out.
"It’s just these wild charges; nothing has changed,” former Congressman Bill Richardson (D-New Mexico), who chaired the subcommittee at the time, told the paper. “He’s always operated this way.”
A few years later, Trump was trying to get in bed with Indian Country. He visited the Cowlitz Tribe in Washington in the early 2000s and again made big promises.
"Trump said it was the most incredible site he had ever seen, incredible," Dave Barnett, the son of the late Chairman John Barnett, told The Columbian earlier this year. The tribe ended up not going with the mogul after believing he was asking for too much money.
But in 2000, Trump signed a letter of intent to manage a casino for the Twenty-Nine
Palms Band of Mission Indians in California. By then his spotty track record was well known.
"I seriously doubt he'll follow through with his plan, because it's not very often that he follows through," the late visionary Richard Milanovich, who led the Agua Caliente Band for nearly three decades until his passing in March 2012,
told The Los Angeles Times in March 2000.
Milanovich was basically proven right. The Twenty-Nine Palms Band ended its agreement with Trump after just three years, depriving him of the revenues he thought he was going to make out of the deal.
"That was some real ‘Art of the Deal’ stuff, wasn’t it?” Victor Rocha, the owner
of Pechanga.net, told The Palm Springs Desert Sun. “They figured out pretty quickly that this guy was not what he said he
was, and they could do a better job. And they have.”
Get the Story:
Donald Trump’s long history of clashes with Native Americans
(The Washington Post 7/25)
Related Stories:
Indian
Country makes presence known at Democratic convention (07/26)
Tim
Giago: Questioning the motto of GOP candidate Donald Trump (7/26)
Doug
George-Kanentiio: Donald Trump and his campaign of hatred (7/25)
Mark
Charles: The entire nation's problem with Donald Trump (07/22)
Mark
Trahant: Donald Trump promises a world with no treaties (07/22)
Donald
Trump closes Republican convention that left out Indian Country (07/22)
Mark
Trahant: Donald Trump's Republican convention is one big failure (07/21)
Donald
Trump officially named Republican presidential nominee (07/20)
Republicans
unveil platform and project inclusion at convention (07/19)
Mark
Trahant: Donald Trump's Republicans carry the banner for more coal (07/18)
Navajo
artist Vanessa Bowen takes on Donald Trump with 'Make America Native Again'
(07/12)
Coquille
Tribe faced threats for hosting Donald Trump supporters at casino (07/11)
Mashantucket
Pequot Tribal Nation slams Donald Trump for 'bigoted' attacks (07/07)
Mainstream
media tunes into Donald Trump's attacks on Indian gaming (07/04)
Donald
Trump approved Indian gaming attack ads in New York (06/30)
Dean
Obeidallah: Donald Trump's smears go back to the first Americans (06/02)
Donald
Trump claims 'Jack Abrahamoff scandal' proves he was right about tribes
(05/23)
Donald
Trump's long and strained relationship with Indian gaming (5/19)
Cowlitz
Tribe hosted Donald Trump to discuss his interest in casino (05/09)
Donald
Trump tried to bully his way into New York tribe's casino bid (04/18)
Candidate
suggests building wall around Chumash Tribe casino (03/24)
Twenty-Nine
Palms Band ended Donald Trump casino deal for $6M (03/21)
Donald
Trump once claimed IGRA and tribal casinos were illegal (01/29)
Cowlitz
Tribe turned down Donald Trump for gaming partnership (10/05)
Donald
Trump wanted Jeb Bush to negotiate gaming compact (09/18)
Donald
Trump spars with Jeb Bush over gaming bid in Florida (09/17)
Donald
Trump tried to open casino with Seminole Tribe in Florida (09/02)
Donald
Trump supported then opposed casino in Connecticut (08/21)
American
Gaming Association stakes claim in presidential race (08/12)
Column:
Donald Trump's first big slur came at tribe's expense (08/10)
Donald
Trump not shy with invoking race when it comes to tribes (07/31)