The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Warren takes one from Trump playbook
She took the DNA test President Donald Trump urged, and he mocked her for it. Now Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking a page from Trump’s playbook, hitting back in personal terms and calling him “creepy” on Twitter.
When it comes to challenging the man who redefined the rules of American political combat, the Massachusetts Democrat, who’s weighing a 2020 presidential run, is often doing it Trump’s way.
And like Trump, she’s getting blowback: Jokes. Objections. And grumblings from her own political party about timing, with midterm elections three weeks away.
A look at how it’s playing out:
THE DNA TEST
Trump’s mockery of Warren’s claim of Native American ancestry — he’s called her “Pocahontas” and said he would offer to pay $1 million to charity if she took a DNA test — clearly got into her head.
In what was a long-planned and heavily produced rollout, Warren on Monday released the results of a DNA test that shows she has Native American ancestry between six and 10 generations ago.
That would make her between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American, according to The Boston Globe.
Warren has acknowledged listing her Native American heritage on a directory for years, but she and those who hired her have denied that her background was a factor in advancing her career.
The accusation that the Oklahoma native claimed the ethnic background to get ahead could be politically potent with the party’s black and Hispanic supporters.
Among Warren’s possible 2020 competitors are former Vice President Joe Biden and at least four of Warren’s fellow Democratic senators: Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
What’s unclear is whether Warren’s DNA gambit will allow her to put the controversy in the past, or whether it endures in jokes and political lore.
TRUMP
The president’s initial reaction to Warren’s DNA test: “Who cares?” He also denied making the million-dollar donation offer.
Warren promptly tweeted her charity of choice: The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.
Asked about the promise to donate to Warren’s charity of choice, Trump said:
“I’ll only do it if I can test her personally. That will not be something I enjoy doing, either.”
DNA tests are typically done using a sample swabbed from the inside of a person’s cheek.
WARREN’S RESPONSE: EWW
“We all know why @realDonaldTrump makes creepy physical threats about me, right? He’s scared. He’s trying to do what he always does to women who scare him: call us names, attack us personally, shrink us down to feel better about himself. It may soothe his ego — but it won’t work,” Warren tweeted.
The “creepy” description carries extra meaning during the nation’s reckoning with sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era.
More than a dozen women have accused him of sexual misconduct — all liars, Trump says.