Trump accused of racism over his ‘Pocahontas’ jab

WASHINGTON: It was a solemn White House occasion to honour surviving Native American code talkers from World War 2, but US President Donald Trump turned it into a raging controversy, repeating a racially-charged taunt about Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren by referring to her “Pocahontas”.

Addressing the Navajo veterans, Trump discarding his written speech, saying: “I just want to thank you because you’re very, very special people... You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”

He didn’t name anyone, but it was clear who he had meant.

Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, has been long criticised for a questionable claim that she was partly of Native American descent. Trump started calling her Pocahontas during the 2016 campaign to slight her.

The fact that Trump’s remarks were delivered from under a portrait of Andrew Jackson — a former US president who signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which led to the mass displacement of Native Americans — didn’t help matters.

“It’s unfortunate that President Trump would refer to Sen Warren as Pocahontas in a joking way,” Mihio Manus, a spokesman for the Navajo National told The Washington Post.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted that Trump did not mean to be offensive or use a racial slur

Warren told The New York Times: “This was a ceremony to honour war heroes — Native Americans who had put it all on the line to protect our country and to save lives of Americans and our allies... It should have been a celebration of their incredible service, but Donald Trump couldn’t make it through without tossing in a racial slur.”

You were here long before any of us were here... We have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas. But you know what, I like you.

DONALD TRUMP, US president