CNN host David Axelrod confronted Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday over her claims to Native American ancestry.
Axelrod noted during an interview on his show, “The Axe Files,” that Warren only has a minuscule amount of Native American DNA and demanded to know why the 2020 hopeful ever identified herself as an American Indian.
A recent report from The Washington Post indicated that Warren wrote that she was “American Indian” on her registration form for the Texas Bar exam in the 1980s. (RELATED: Elizabeth Warren Has Been Caught Calling Herself ‘American Indian’ Again)
“The question that I’ve never understood is why? Why did you in 1986 fill out on your — I guess it was your law license or something — an exam application, ‘American Indian’? Why did you check those boxes?” Axelrod questioned. “Because obviously that’s a very small part of your lineage, you know, 1/32nd or something. So why did you do it?”
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Warren responded with an excuse she has used repeatedly, which is that she believed stories about her heritage told by her family members.
“I grew up in Oklahoma, I learned about my family the same way most people learn about their family,” Warren asserted. “Based on what I learned growing up, and the fact that I love my family, decades ago I sometimes identified as Native American.”
Warren denied that identifying as Native American was ever a tactic to gain favor with potential employers, despite the fact that Harvard Law School once touted her as a Native American professor. A Fordham Law Review article from 1997 identified Warren as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color.”
“But the universities kind of fudged and used you for their own purposes,” Axelrod answered.
“It never had anything to do with my getting a job,” Warren said. “Even so, I shouldn’t have done it. I’m not a person of color, I am not a citizen of a tribe.”
Axelrod also asked if Warren made a mistake by releasing a video about her DNA test results, to which Warren said, “I can’t go back — all I can do is go forward … I think I have [learned from it].”