Trump Teases $1 Million Offer to Elizabeth Warren To Prove Her Heritage
During a campaign rally in Montana this week, President Donald Trump once again took aim at a frequent political foe, referring to potential 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”
Trump has often used the derisive nickname in reference to the Democratic senator’s unsubstantiated claims of Native American ancestry.
The president took his mockery even further on Thursday, suggesting he would pay Warren $1 million to submit to a DNA test that would prove her heritage. He went on to describe how he plans to administer the test.
“But let’s say I’m debating Pocahontas, I’ll do this,” he told a crowd in Great Falls. “I promise you I’ll do this. You know those little kits they sell on television for $2? Learn your heritage. I’m going to get one of those little kits.”
Predicting that Warren would “proclaim she’s of Indian heritage” during the debate, Trump said that would be his cue to act.
“We will take that little kit,” he said. “We have to do it gently because we’re in the ‘Me Too’ generation. We have to be very gentle.”
Trump said he would “slowly toss” the DNA test toward the Massachusetts senator, “hoping it doesn’t hit her and injure her arm, even though it only weighs probably two ounces.”
At that point, he said, Warren would be forced to choose between subjecting herself to the test or passing up on Trump’s cash offer.
“And we will say, ‘I will give you a million dollars, paid for by Trump, to your favorite charity if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian,” he said.
Trump added that he has “a feeling she will say no,” but he promised to “hold it for the debates.”
In response to his remarks, critics slammed him for his continued use of an actual Native American’s name to ridicule a political enemy.
Acknowledging the ongoing controversy, Trump extended an apology to the historical figure.
“Pocahontas, I apologize to you,” he said at the rally. “To the fake Pocahontas, I won’t.”
Warren responded to the latest barrage of presidential insults in a tweet Thursday.
Hey, @realDonaldTrump: While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 5, 2018
“While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order,” she wrote. “Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you’re destroying.”
Trump’s remarks received applause from the friendly audience in Montana. In addition to the “Pocahontas” jabs, however, he was later criticized for his perceived dismissal of the social movement to expose sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace.
President Trump just made fun of the #MeToo movement at a rally in Montana on the same day that he hired Bill Shine who is accused of helping cover up sexual harassment scandals at Fox News network.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) July 5, 2018
PBS News Hour White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor noted that his comments about the “#MeToo movement” came on the “same day that he hired Bill Shine who is accused of helping cover up sexual harassment scandals at Fox News network.”
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