Responding to derision from Donald Trump and other critics, Elizabeth Warren on Monday published a DNA analysis that provides strong evidence she does 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.”
Trump, 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 she may run. Her DNA analysis was done by a Stanford University professor, the Boston Globe reported. Carlos D 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.
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
Bustamante, a prominent expert in DNA analysis, 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-1024th Native American, something that could further excite her critics.
Some have charged that Warren advanced her academic career as a law professor by claiming to be 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. This summer he went so far as to offer $1m to a charity of Warren’s choice if she took a DNA test that proved her claims.
Warren said in March she would not take a 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.”
Later on Monday, Trump said he will only pay the $1m “if I can test her personally. OK? That will not be something I enjoy doing, either.”
Warren called Trump’s comment a “creepy physical threat”.
“He’s trying to do what he always does to women who scare him: call us names, attack us personally, shrink us down to feel better about himself,” Warren responded on Twitter. “It may soothe his ego – but it won’t work.”
Earlier, on his way to Florida and Georgia to visit communities hit by Hurricane Michael, the president 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.’”
Responding to Trump’s denial on Monday, Warren tweeted: “Having some memory problems? Should we call for a doctor? Here’s something you won’t ‘forget’ … you’re the least popular president in modern history [and] your allies will go down hard in the midterm elections. 22 days. Tick-tock, tick-tock.”
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 she 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.”
Trump insisted Warren would be easy to beat in 2020, saying: “I think she would destroy our country. She’d turn it into Venezuela.”
“I want her to run,” he said.