Radio host and rapper Charlamagne tha God expanded his criticisms of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) Thursday night, saying the 2020 hopeful has yet to apologize for her false claims to Native American heritage "in a real way."
Charlamagne first grilled Warren on his show, The Breakfast Club, in late May, telling her past claims of Native American heritage made her sound like "the original Rachel Dolezal," a white woman who pretended to be black to advance in the NAACP. Warren replied, saying that a Boston Globe investigation showed that she never benefited from this claim.
During a Wednesday appearance on CNN's OutFront, Charlamagne told host Erin Burnett that he did not believe Warren has been totally straightforward about why she had claimed to be a Native American.
"You know, Elizabeth Warren, like I said, she has so much policies and plans and everything else is so detailed when you ask her about something," he said. "But when you ask her about that, she says, 'Oh, that's just what I learned from my family.' There are so many other questions can you ask. Like, so did the rest of your family find out they weren't Native American when you did? I definitely don't buy her answer."
Charlamagne said Warren must have benefited "in some way, shape, or form," adding that in his view, if she said so, that wouldn't disqualify her.
"I don't understand why she would act that would disqualify her," he said. "We're Americans, we've all cheated at some point in our lives, we've all took some type of shortcut. We've all tried to get ahead in some way. If she did that at some point in her life, that wouldn't make me look at her be like, 'You're a terrible human being.'"
After Burnett noted that Warren's recent surge in national polls makes it seem like she has moved on from this issue, Charlamagne said that while that may be so right now, the Native American question will continue to dog the senator until she addresses it "in a real way."
"Eventually people are going to keep asking her about it until she acknowledges it in a real way," he said. "Meaning, 'Hey. I did it, I was wrong. This is why I did it, I thought I could get ahead. And I learned my lesson from it.'"