Elections

Elizabeth Warren insists: I would be Massachusetts’ first Native American senator

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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Democratic Massachusetts U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren isn’t backing down from her claims of Native American heritage, telling a Fox television affiliate in Boston that she would be the state’s first senator with Indian blood if she were to defeat Republican Sen. Scott Brown in November.

Asked by FOX 25’s Sharman Sacchetti on Friday if she would be Massachusetts’ first Native American senator, Warren responded: “I would be their first senator — so far as I know — who has Native American heritage.”

For more than a month, Warren has struggled to explain why she described herself as a Native American minority in the 1980s and ’90s while applying for jobs but hasn’t publicly identified herself that way since.

Critics have accused her of conveniently claiming minority status when it could have helped her professionally.

The Harvard Law School professor hasn’t been able to prove her ancestry, other than to say she knows it through family lore.

In the Fox 25 interview, Sacchetti also asked Warren if she would do any specific work on Native American issues if she were to win the election. Warren, however, declined to single the group out.

“Oh, listen — I’m working on what happens to America’s families,” Warren said. “That’s what I’ve been working on for 25 years and that’s what I’ll keep working on. It’s all of America’s families that are getting hammered.”

Watch:

The full interview is available on FOX 25’s website.

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