Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani made a strange comment on NBC News election night favorably comparing Donald Trump to Andrew Jackson — the president who oversaw a literal act of ethnic cleansing against Native Americans.
Speculating on a seemingly likely Trump win, Giuliani said: “If it does happen, as it looks that it will, this is a real victory for the people. And Chris, I know you’re a historian — this is like Andrew Jackson’s victory. This is the people beating the establishment. That’s how we posited it right from the beginning — the people are rising up against a government they find to be dysfunctional.”
It might seem surprising that Giuliani would compare his candidate to such a racist figure.
But a lot of Americans don’t know about Jackson’s ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee. Jackson has a reputation as a populist man of the people, ad he’s on the front of our $20 bill — although he’s soon to be replaced by Harriet Tubman. (Jackson will still be on the back of the bill, however.)
Trump himself has spoken favorably of Jackson, whom he said had “tremendous success” — and called it “pure political correctness” that the Treasury Department was planning to replace Jackson’s face on the front of the $20 bill with Tubman’s.
