Warren releases DNA analysis
Results ‘strongly support’ the Democratic senator’s claim of Native American ancestry.
BOSTON — Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday released the results of a DNA analysis that she said indicated she has some Native American heritage, a direct rebuttal to President Donald Trump, who has long mocked her ancestral claims and repeatedly referred to her as “Pocahontas.”
The Massachusetts Democrat and potential 2020 presidential contender challenged Trump to make good on his pledge to donate $1 million to charity if she provided proof of Native American heritage, a moment that was caught on video. Trump falsely denied ever making the offer.
Speaking to reporters Monday, the president’s initial reaction to the DNA report was: “Who cares?”
“I hope she’s running for president because I think she’d be very easy,” Trump added. “I do not think that she’d be difficult at all. She’ll destroy the country. She’ll make our country into Venezuela.”
The analysis was done by Stanford University professor Carlos Bustamante, a prominent expert in the field. He concluded that the great majority of Warren’s ancestry is European but added that the results “strongly support” the existence of a Native American ancestor.
In his report, Bustamante said he analyzed Warren’s sample without knowing the identity of the donor. He concluded that Warren has a pure Native American ancestor who probably lived six to 10 generations ago, and that it was impossible to determine the individual’s tribal connection.
Warren, who has said her Native American roots were part of “family lore,” also released a video produced by her Senate re-election campaign. In it, she said: “The president likes to call my mom a liar. What do the facts say?”
Bustamante replied: “The facts suggest that you absolutely have Native American ancestry in your pedigree.”
The analysis is not the first evidence of Warren’s heritage. An 1894 document previously unearthed by the New England Genealogical Society suggested Warren’s great-great-greatgrandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, was at least partially Native American, making the senator as much as 1⁄32nd Native American.
The genealogy group has said it has no conclusive evidence of her ancestry, and a spokesman said Monday it would not comment on the genetic findings.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway dismissed the DNA test, calling it “junk science.”
“I haven’t looked at the test,” Conway told reporters Monday. “I know that everybody likes to pick their junk science or sound science depending on the conclusion.”
But Jennifer Raff, an assistant professor in the anthropology department at the University of Kansas, said the geneticist who analyzed Warren’s DNA is a prominent scholar in the field, and the method he used and the way he used it was appropriate. Raff, who has read the report, said the geneticist looked at Warren’s chromosomes and was able to trace segments of them back to a
Native American ancestor about six to 10 generations ago.
Warren’s effort to address questions about her ancestry and the release of the video are her latest moves telegraphing a likely presidential run in 2020. During the summer, she also released a decade’s worth of tax returns, drawing a contrast with Trump’s unwillingness to release his own tax documents.
The moves seem to anticipate the type of criticism she might face against opponents in a Democratic primary or in a possible general election matchup against Trump.
Washington Post contributed.