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| Elizabeth Warren hits back at Trump's ‘Pocahontas’ jibe by releasing DNA test | |
| (about 3 hours later) | |
| Responding to years of derision from Donald Trump and other critics, Elizabeth Warren on Monday published a DNA analysis that provides strong evidence she does, in fact, have Native American heritage. | |
| “I never expected my family’s story to be used as a racist political joke,” the Massachusetts senator tweeted, “but I don’t take any fight lying down.” | |
| Donald Trump, the chief purveyor of that racist joke in nicknaming Warren “Pocahontas”, duly shot back, telling reporters he didn’t care about the DNA test and saying he hoped the Democrat would run for president in 2020, as she would be “very easy” to beat. | |
| On Twitter, Warren made a midterms-related political play of her own, writing: “I took this test and released the results for anyone who cares to see because I’ve got nothing to hide. What are YOU hiding, [Donald Trump]? Release your tax returns – or the Democratic-led House will do it for you soon enough. Tick-tock, Mr President.” | |
| Warren is widely seen as a possible candidate for the 2020 presidential nomination and has indicated that she may run. Her DNA analysis was done by a Stanford University professor, Carlos D Bustamante, the Boston Globe reported. Bustamante concluded Warren’s ancestry is mostly European but said “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor”. | |
| I took this test and released the results for anyone who cares to see because I’ve got nothing to hide. What are YOU hiding, @realDonaldTrump? Release your tax returns – or the Democratic-led House will do it for you soon enough. Tick-tock, Mr President. | |
| Bustamante is a prominent expert in DNA analysis. He determined a pure Native American ancestor appears “in the range of six to 10 generations ago”. That meshes with Warren’s narrative that her great-great-great-grandmother, OC Sarah Smith, was at least partially Native American. That would make Warren one-32nd Native American. If her ancestor is 10 generations back, that could mean she is just one-512th Native American, something that could further excite her critics. | |
| Some have charged that Warren advanced her academic career as a law professor with a narrative that she is a descendant of Cherokee and Delaware tribes. In September a Globe investigation concluded that she did not. | |
| Trump has gleefully mocked Warren as “Pocahontas” – after the daughter of a Native American chieftain who died in England in 1617 – and has gone so far as to offer $1m to a charity of her choice if she took a DNA test that proved her claims. | |
| Warren said in March she would not take a DNA test but after doing so, on Monday she named a charity Trump could pay: the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC). Given accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against Trump himself and his second supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, the choice was politically loaded. | |
| “NIWRC is a nonprofit,” Warren wrote, “working to protect Native women from violence. More than half of all Native women have experienced sexual violence, and the majority of violent crimes against Native Americans are perpetrated by non-Natives. Send them your $1m check.” | |
| Trump, who was on his way to Florida and Georgia to visit communities hit by Hurricane Michael, spoke to reporters outside the White House. He was asked about Warren’s move. | |
| “Who cares?” he said. Asked about his offer to pay $1m to charity, he claimed: “I didn’t say that. You’d better read it again.” | |
| In fact, at a rally in Montana on 5 July, Trump told supporters: “We will take that little [DNA] kit – but we have to do it gently. Because we’re in the #MeToo generation, we have to do it gently. | |
| “And we will very gently take that kit, and slowly toss it, hoping it doesn’t injure her arm, and we will say: ‘I will give you a million dollars to your favourite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.’” | |
| Warren is seeking re-election to a second term and leads her Republican opponent by a comfortable margin. Her Senate campaign produced a video in which Warren said: “The president likes to call my mom a liar. What do the facts say?” | |
| Bustamante replied: “The facts suggest that you absolutely have Native American ancestry in your pedigree.” | |
| On Monday, Trump insisted Warren would be easy to beat, saying: “I think she would destroy our country. She’d turn it into Venezuela.” | |
| “I want her to run,” he said. | |
| Elizabeth Warren | Elizabeth Warren |
| Native Americans | Native Americans |
| Massachusetts | Massachusetts |
| US politics | US politics |
| Donald Trump | |
| US midterms 2018 | |
| news | news |
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