A candidate for the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts tweeted out a video on Sunday challenging Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to prove her claims of having American Indian heritage.
V.A. Shiva, who is seeking the Republican nomination in 2018 and has claimed he invented email, filmed himself holding a "23andMe" DNA testing kit, which he claims requires only his saliva and a "few short days" to prove if he was a real Indian. Shiva was born in Bombay, India, while Warren's claim is about having American Indian, or Native American, heritage.
"I want to challenge Elizabeth Warren to do the same," he said. "I'm calling this now the Real Indian vs. Fake Indian challenge. Elizabeth, why don't you do this? It's really, really simple."
I'm challenging @SenWarren to the Real Indian vs #FakeIndian DNA TEST👌🏾. pic.twitter.com/z2lbYXPlfe
— V.A. SHIVA (@va_shiva) May 21, 2017
The Massachusetts Republican Party has also released a video slamming Warren for her claims of having Cherokee Indian heritage.
Warren's claims of Indian heritage from her early days as a professor dogged her during her 2012 run for the Senate against Scott Brown. She could only cite "family stories," according to the Washington Post, of having Delaware and Cherokee Indian heritage, at one point referencing a relative's "high cheekbones."
In the video tweeted out by Shiva, Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina, question Warren's trustworthiness.
.@SenWarren The Cherokee People are disgusted by you. Watch this video. They know you are a #FakeIndian . Apology? pic.twitter.com/p2JbS0RMMf
— V.A. SHIVA (@va_shiva) May 21, 2017
President Trump has seized on the controversy to hit back at Warren's criticisms of him, derisively calling her "Pocahontas."