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MSNBC Host: Did Elizabeth Warren Make a Mistake?

October 18, 2018

MSNBC host Craig Melvin posed a question to a progressive guest on Thursday that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) probably wouldn't like: Did she make a mistake this week by releasing her DNA test results?

Warren sought to put a political controversy behind her by releasing a DNA analysis showing she could be anywhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American. President Donald Trump has long mockingly called her "Pocahontas" for claiming to have Native American lineage with no proof.

Warren's move has infuriated progressives and Native Americans, with several of the latter stating she harmed Native communities by muddying the waters about what constitutes tribal identity. Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. slammed her for taking and then releasing the test; he said she was "undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage."

Melvin recapped the controversy and asked liberal activist Zerlina Maxwell, "Do we think that the decision itself was a mistake? Do we think the timing was a mistake? What do we make of the political calculation of Elizabeth Warren releasing these DNA test results 20 days away from the midterms?"

Maxwell said the answer was "complicated" but acknowledged the rollout was not smoothly executed.

"In terms of the Cherokee Nation statement, I found that to be ridiculous," Maxwell said, adding she is also part Cherokee. "I'm not trying to join a tribe or claim membership in a tribe, and neither did Elizabeth Warren. To be clear, I think that while the rollout of the DNA test and the decision to do a DNA test ... may not have been the best method, I also think that the Cherokee Nation response was problematic, because it actually ignores the fact that DNA testing historically has been used to exclude black natives from tribal affiliation."

Warren said she never claimed to be part of the Cherokee tribe but rather wanted to corroborate her longtime claims of having Native American heritage. She'd never been able to prove it beyond telling family lore, and the controversy has dogged her political career since she first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012.