Despite being a favorite of the progressive news media and the recipient of plenty of positive press, the Warren campaign is apparently still worried about those claims of Native American heritage the candidate has made in the past.
The campaign recently removed any mention of her claims of being part Native American from her site. The controversial claims – followed by a DNA test that proved them to be false – have followed the candidate throughout her campaign. They also led to her being dubbed “Pocahontas” by President Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, and other conservative commentators.
The campaign removed any indication of both the initial claims and the follow up DNA test. Despite her claims of Native American ancestry, the results of the DNA test showed Warren had only a tiny amount of the background she claimed. Her own video reveals that she had just 1/1024th Native American ancestry.
Warren was using this tiny amount of heritage to leverage her claims of being part Native American. Warren has long claimed to be part Cherokee and part of a minority group.
The claims had already led to derision from conservatives, who called her out for attempting to be considered a minority and to take advantage of status she did not legally have. These claims have long led to derision and jokes at Warren’s expense. Progressives weren’t pleased about the facade either; Warren was seen as attempting to exploit authentic Native Americans by falsely claiming this heritage.
Up until this week, the Warren campaign maintained the “proof” of the candidate’s Cherokee ancestry on her official presidential campaign website. This included both the original claims, the DNA test results, and a video of her opening the test results. This debacle has come up again and again as Warren’s bid for the Democratic ticket continues. The Warren team quietly removed the video, claims and statements this week, likely in hopes of rendering this particular issue obsolete as the Democratic campaign season continues.
According to CNN, the removal of all mention of Native American heritage means that Warren is paying close attention to the way her claims are being used by both sides and the impact they have on Native American groups. Progressives have a tough decision — Warren is female, which is good, but white, which is not. She is also claiming to be a member of a minority group that she really does not belong to. Some see this as exploiting the group for her own gains. Recent coverage of her claims by the mainstream media have focused not on Warren’s faulty reasoning and claims, but on President Donald Trump. Since President Trump picked up on and used the nickname “Pocohantas”, progressives claim this is further proof not of Warren’s exploitation, but of Trump’s inherent racism, spinning stories to focus on the president instead of the candidates.
The recent removal of all mentions of her “heritage” indicate the Warren campaign has lingering concerns about the claims and hope to remove them from the campaign.