Trump Administration Hires Strategist Who Posted Racist Tweet About Native Americans

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on Thursday it was hiring a political strategist who once posted racist imagery of Native Americans on his X, formerly Twitter, account in 2022. Colton Duncan, who is set to serve as the agency’s White House liaison, was “the most important person” in Kari Lake’s gubernatorial campaign in Arizona, the Arizona Mirror reported in 2022.

In October of that year, Duncan posted an artist’s depiction of an ancient civilization practicing human sacrifice and cannibalism. He captioned the photo “Happy Indigenous People’s Day!” a reference to the holiday that several states have opted to celebrate in place of Christopher Columbus Day, which occurs in early October.

The post went unnoticed until a Democratic consultant amplified the tweet. Duncan quickly made his account private, but not before the post was preserved. Lake would go on to lose the governor’s race in 2022 and a bid for the U.S. Senate in 2024.

The Department of Labor did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Now, Duncan will have a senior role at the agency that oversees the administration of workplace safety, employee wages and unemployment benefits. In a press release about his hiring, the department said the positions being announced today will “help Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer execute President Donald Trump’s mission of putting American workers and retirees first.”

Duncan’s appointment, however, is not an anomaly. The Trump administration is littered with senior staffers who have espoused racist and bigoted beliefs.

Darren Beattie, who was fired during the first Trump term for attending a white nationalist conference, was welcomed back to serve as a senior official at the U.S. State Department. Then there is Marko Elez, who was brought on to serve on the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led advisory board that has been cutting government funding at an alarming rate. Elez resigned after media reports linked him to racist posts he made last year on X. Musk later said he would be rehired.

Stephen Miller, who served as a senior adviser in the White House during the first Trump term, was appointed deputy chief of staff for the president’s return to power. Miller has infamously far-right beliefs on immigration and in 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed that Miller shared hundreds of pieces of white nationalist literature with extremist news outlets.