“Pocahontas” remark a bigger problem for Warren than Trump

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) used President Donald Trump‘s recent Pocahontas comment in several fundraising emails, but the moniker may be more of a problem for Warren than it is for Trump.

“You might have heard that Donald Trump likes to call me ‘Pocahontas.’ He does it on Twitter, at rallies, and even in official White House meetings,” a fundraising email read, calling it the “very worst of gutter politics.”

The emails come after Trump stamped Warren with the Pocahontas slam at a Navajo Code Talker event in the Oval Office on Monday.

“You’re very, very special people,” Trump told a group of WWII code talkers. “You were here long before any of us were here. Although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what. I like you. Because you are special.”

Trump has repeatedly referred to Warren as the legendary Native American woman ever since the Senator was caught falsely claiming Cherokee ancestry and minority ethnic status tp help her land a lucrative position at Harvard.

“[Elizabeth Warren] checked the box. She had an opportunity, actually, to make a decision throughout her career,” Scott Brown said in a debate against Warren. “When she applied to Penn and Harvard, she checked the box claiming she was Native American, and, you know, clearly she’s not.”

Sen. Warren’s Cherokee claims were busted by the Atlantic in 2012:

Elizabeth Warren is not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

Elizabeth Warren is not enrolled in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

And Elizabeth Warren is not one of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee.

Nor could she become one, even if she wanted to.

Despite a nearly three week flap over her claim of “being Native American,” the progressive consumer advocate has been unable to point to evidence of Native heritage except for a unsubstantiated thirdhand report that she might be 1/32 Cherokee. Even if it could be proven, it wouldn’t qualify her to be a member of a tribe: Contrary to assertions in outlets from The New York Times to Mother Jones that having 1/32 Cherokee ancestry is “sufficient for tribal citizenship,” “Indian enough” for “the Cherokee Nation,” and “not a deal-breaker,” Warren would not be eligible to become a member of any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes based on the evidence so far surfaced by independent genealogists about her ancestry.

Warren’s claims landed her the epithets “Spouting Bull” and “Fauxcahontas”, but Trump chooses instead to refer to her as Pocahontas.

Warren bizarrely claims that the president’s use of the term is a “racial slur”. The senator dishonestly claimed Native American ancestry to gain an advantage over other candidates for a job at Harvard. The president reminded the nation of her insensitive cultural appropriation for personal gain.