Billionaire and former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein criticized Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) on Thursday with a dig at her embarrassing attempt to prove her Native American heritage.
Warren included Blankfein in a new attack ad targeting billionaires for their opposition to her proposed wealth tax, and Blankfein fired back by saying, "maybe tribalism is just in her DNA."
Surprised to be featured in Sen Warren’s campaign ad, given the many severe critics she has out there. Not my candidate, but we align on many issues. Vilification of people as a member of a group may be good for her campaign, not the country. Maybe tribalism is just in her DNA.
— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) November 14, 2019
In 2018, Warren took a DNA test to respond to President Donald Trump's mockery of her claims of Native American ancestry. She initially celebrated the findings—that she may be as little as 1/1024th Native American—with a video, but critics on the right mocked the results, while critics on the left took issue with the idea of taking a DNA test to prove Native ancestry.
Warren apologized and deleted the video, but the claim has continued to dog her campaign and serve as evidence of dishonesty. Warren's truthfulness has further come into question thanks to her claim that she was fired from a teaching job for being pregnant, a claim that official records contradict.
This history of questionable honesty has led many liberals to accuse the senator of fabrication, as billionaire Leon Cooperman did on CNBC Thursday. Saying he was reluctant to "go the low road," he pointed out that Warren claimed to be Native American in her Texas Bar application and while on the Harvard Law School faculty.
"We don't need another fabricator in the White House," Cooperman said.