While speaking at an event at the White House honoring Navajo code talkers this Monday, President Trump took an opportunity to recycle one of his favorite digs at Senator Elizabeth Warren.
“I just want to thank you because you are very, very special people. You were here long before any of us were here,” Trump said according to CNN. “Although, we have a representative in Congress who has been here a long time … longer than you — they call her Pochahontas!”
According to reporters present at the event, the comment was met with an awkward silence.
Warren addressed Trump’s remarks to MSNBC shortly afterwards.
“It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur,” Warren said. “Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn’t worked out in the past, it isn’t going to work out in the future.”
Warren has come under attack from conservatives for claiming she’s part Native American — a narrative Trump picked up on and has been using the ‘Pocahontas’ slur since the 2016 campaign. Just recently as this month, Trump used the slur again while tweeting about news regarding Warren’s comments about the DNC and its alleged favoritism of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.
Pocahontas just stated that the Democrats, lead by the legendary Crooked Hillary Clinton, rigged the Primaries! Lets go FBI & Justice Dept.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017
According to CNN, Trump used the slur again to taunt Democrats during a meeting with senators at the White House, saying, “Pocahontas is now the face of your party.”
From CNN:
The legitimacy of Warren’s heritage has been widely debated and Scott Brown, her 2012 Senate campaign opponent, has even suggested Warren take a DNA test to prove her heritage.
Harvard Law School in the 1990s touted Warren, then a professor in Cambridge, as being “Native American.” They singled her out, Warren later acknowledged, because she had listed herself as a minority in an Association of American Law Schools directory.
Critics seized on the listing, saying that she received preferential treatment for questionable Native American heritage. Warren contends that her career was never furthered because of her Native American genealogy.
WH press sec says "Pocahontas" is not a racial slur. (Fact check: it is.) https://t.co/tRW5H7ILcn
— jim acosta (@Acosta) November 27, 2017
Watch video of Trump’s comments below:
Featured image via YouTube
