President Donald Trump on Tuesday weighed in on Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D., Mass.) latest claims of Native American ancestry, which she said were verified by a DNA test, calling the test "bogus" and saying she was should "apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public."
"Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed. She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American. Now Cherokee Nation denies her, "DNA test is useless." Even they don’t want her. Phony!" Trump tweeted early on Tuesday morning.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052168909665824769
"Now that her claims of being of Indian heritage have turned out to be a scam and a lie, Elizabeth Warren should apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public. Harvard called her "a person of color" (amazing con), and would not have taken her otherwise!" the president added.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052171444082360320
"Thank you to the Cherokee Nation for revealing that Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, is a complete and total Fraud!" he concluded.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1052173526919196672
Trump has repeatedly attacked Warren's purported Native American ancestry, calling her Pocahontas and offering to donate $1 million to a charity of her choice if she took a DNA test while debating him during her future presidential run. Fact-checkers were unable to verify Warren's claims because they were based on family lore. On Monday, Warren released the results of a DNA test, which indicate she could be anywhere between 1/64 and 1/1024 Native American. Stanford University Professor Carlos Bustamante, known for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis, calculated Warren's "pure Native American ancestor" appeared "in the range of 6-10 generations ago."
Warren previously claimed to be Native American on official documents while teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, the Boston Globe reported. She listed herself as Native American while teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1987 to 1995 and then at Harvard Law School beginning in 1995.
The Cherokee Nation, of which Warren claimed to have descended from when she contributed to the Native American cookbook "Pow Wow Chow" and signed her name Elizabeth Warren-Cherokee, spoke out against Warren's DNA test claims on Monday. The tribe's secretary of state said in a statement that DNA tests are "useless" to determine tribal affiliation.
"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said. "Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation."
Hoskin also said Warren's repeated insistence that she is Native American is harmful to tribal interests.
"Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong," he said. "It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage."