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Trump wants to personally test Elizabeth Warren's DNA. She said it's a “creepy physical threat.”

"That will not be something I enjoy doing, either," Trump said.
Trump wants to personally test Elizabeth Warren's DNA. She calls it "creepy"

President Donald Trump has added a dubious caveat to his promise to donate $1 million to the charity of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s choice if she offered proof of her Native American ancestry: He wants to personally test her.

"I'll only do it if I can test her personally, OK?" Trump said to reporters Monday. "That will not be something I enjoy doing, either."

Trump did not specify what he meant by personally testing her, but Sen. Warren interpreted the remark as a “creepy physical threat.”

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“He’s scared,” Warren tweeted in response to Trump’s remarks about testing her. “He’s trying to do what he always does to women who scare him: call us names, attack us personally, shrink us down to feel better about himself. It may soothe his ego — but it won’t work.”

Trump initially tried to deny that he ever said he would donate money if Warren got a genetic test. On Monday, Warren publicized the results of a DNA analysis from Carlos Bustamante, a Stanford University professor, which concluded that her “results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor,” though that ancestor is about six to 10 generations removed from Warren.

Trump has used Warren’s claim that she has Native American heritage as a frequent political attack. Warren then called out Trump with a video that showed Trump making the $1 million pledge at a rally.

The announcement has been far from all positive publicity for Sen. Warren, who is widely believed to be prepping a 2020 run for president. The Cherokee Nation released a statement that harshly criticized Warren.

"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America," Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.

Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.

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Trump, who often uses the racist insult of “Pocahontas” to call out Warren, highlighted the Cherokee Nation response and claimed that Warren used Native American status to get ahead in her academic career.

“Elizabeth Warren should apologize for perpetrating this fraud against the American Public,” Trump tweeted. “Harvard called her “a person of color” (amazing con), and would not have taken her otherwise!”

The latter half of Trump’s tweet is incorrect. A spokesman for Harvard Law School told a student reporter that Warren was Native American in 1996, and Warren has never used the status to take advantage of affirmative action hiring programs.

Warren also drew ire from the left, with critics arguing that she miscalculated by trying to discredit Trump’s racist attacks. Instead, she drew attention to what is already seen as a major political scandal for herself, they say.

Cover image: Senator Elizabeth Warren speaks in the Democratic Outreach Team's room at her campaign headquarters in Dorchester. A map of competitive congress races that the team is tracking is hung up on the wall behind her. (Photo by Hadley Green for The Washington Post via Getty Images)