Cole said the weakest point in Fallin’s resume is that she hasn’t dealt much with the Bureau of Land Management, which controls large amounts of land in the West. “Her background is good,” Cole said. “She’s been supportive of (Trump). There are a variety of potential fits. Interior is the most intriguing, but it’s not the only one.”

Trump’s history with Indian tribes is undoubtedly a cause for some concern on their part. In the 1990s he fought the expansion of Indian casinos competing with his own interests in the East.

Trump told a House committee that the Mashantucket Pequots, who operated a casino in Connecticut, do not look like “real Indians” and that organized crime was “rampant” on reservations.

Recently, it was learned that during this same time frame Trump secretly paid for anti-Indian casino television ads in upstate New York that suggested the Mohawks were involved in drug trafficking and racketeering.

More recently, he has referred to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, an Oklahoma native, as “Pocahontas” because she claimed Cherokee ancestry that cannot be confirmed.

How much of all that is simply rhetoric is yet to be determined. But, more so than usual, the tribes would welcome a familiar face in the new administration.