Former Obama administration official Rosie Rios, who chairs the taxpayer-funded America250 commission overseeing next year’s semiquincentennial celebration, tapped to help organize the festivities a left-wing nonprofit which has been the driving force behind efforts to remove Christopher Columbus memorials and cancel the federal holiday honoring the famed explorer.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) has also spearheaded efforts to rename the Washington Redskins football team and successfully lobbied then-president Joe Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement leader who murdered two FBI agents in 1975.
Rios, whom Biden appointed to lead America250 in 2022, selected NCAI and four other “nonpartisan” groups last year to “scale and execute America250 programming.” NCAI will serve as the “subject-matter” expert on Indigenous culture and history, according to America250.
But NCAI is far from nonpartisan, taking millions of dollars in donations from liberal charities like the Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation, in addition to $6,740 in contributions from the Democratic National Committee since 2023.
That could draw additional scrutiny for the commission and Rios, who has already faced calls for her removal from America250 over her criticism of Trump.
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) urged the president to ditch Rios earlier this year, flagging her past statements that “nothing good” could come from Trump’s presidency. She has also said that Trump “demonized … my people,” a reference to her Mexican heritage. Rios, who was born in California to Mexican parents, stated at a conference in 2015 that she was “as much Mexican as I am American.”
“Ms. Rios has a track record of extreme partisan bias against you and your administration,” said Schmitt, who noted that Biden appointed Rios after removing Trump’s initial America250 chairman.
Rios, who served as U.S. treasurer from 2009 to 2016, announced NCAI as an America250 partner at NCAI’s annual convention last year. America250 has not said what contributions NCAI and other nonprofits will make to the semiquincentennial festivities.
In June 2020, NCAI celebrated the removal of Columbus statues, calling the explorer a symbol of “hate, genocide, and bigotry.” The group successfully lobbied the California state legislature in 2022 to remove Columbus’s name from a portion of Interstate 10. It has for years pushed to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Rios and America250 have promoted those critiques of Columbus and the federal holiday celebrating him. Last year, Rios and America250 posted an article, “Unlearning Columbus Day Myths,” which states that “Celebrating Columbus and other explorers like him dismisses the devastating losses experienced by Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere in the past and the ongoing effects of colonialism today.”
That puts NCAI at odds with public opinion, not to mention President Donald Trump. The president said earlier this year the federal government will no longer observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day and will bring Columbus Day “back from the ashes.” He signed a proclamation on Thursday recognizing the holiday, adding: “Columbus Day—we’re back, Italians!”
According to a YouGov poll last year, 69 percent of respondents said Columbus was an “important part of American history,” compared to 20 percent who said he was not. Forty-three percent of respondents support a federal observance of Columbus Day, while 23 percent oppose it.
Since its founding in 1944, NCAI has pressured schools and sports teams to drop Native American mascots. Its biggest success has been in forcing the Washington, D.C., NFL franchise to ditch its Redskins name. In July, Trump called on the franchise to bring back the Redskins name. NCAI, which refers to Redskins as “the R-word,” condemned Trump’s statement as “an affront to Tribal sovereignty.”
NCAI has had success in other controversial areas. The group successfully lobbied Biden in his last weeks in office to grant clemency to Peltier, a former American Indian Movement leader convicted of executing two FBI agents in 1975.
According to NCAI, its president, Mark Macarro, pressed Biden during a flight on Air Force One on Dec. 10, 2024, to free Peltier, claiming he had been wrongfully convicted and was in poor health. Biden granted Peltier clemency on his last day in office, overriding objections from then-FBI director Christopher Wray, who called Peltier a “remorseless killer.”
NCAI has staked out other controversial positions. The group praised Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) for her “candor, humility, and honesty” after she addressed her false claims to have Cherokee ancestry. In contrast, NCAI accused Trump of “cultural misappropriation of Native American cultures and traditions” for mocking Warren as “Pocahontas” over her lies about her ancestry.
NCAI threatened to boycott CNN in May 2021 after former Sen. Rick Santorum stated that “there isn’t much Native American culture in American culture.” And the group praised Nathan Phillips, the Native American activist who provoked Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann in a viral standoff at the Lincoln Memorial.
“In the face of ignorance and intimidation, you reminded us that the song cannot stop, and our prayers for our people will never stop,” NCAI said in a statement.
America250 and NCAI did not respond to requests for comment.
