Boston
“She’s as Native American as I am,” Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said of Warren, an oft-mentioned possible running mate for Hillary Clinton.
Questions about Warren’s ancestry first surfaced during her 2012 Senate run, when she ousted Republican Sen. Scott Brown to claim the seat.
During the campaign, law school directories from the Association of American Law Schools from 1986 to 1995 surfaced that put Warren on the association’s list of “minority law teachers” when she was teaching at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania. Warren said she listed herself with Native American heritage because she hoped to meet people with similar roots.
In a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, Warren, then a Harvard Law School professor, said she and her brothers were told of the family’s heritage by their parents.
“My father wanted to marry my mother, his parents objected, because she was part Cherokee and part Delaware,” said Warren, who was raised in Oklahoma.
Warren said she never sought proof of ancestry because she didn’t think it was necessary. “My mother was proud of who she was, and it was an important part of who she was,” she said.
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Bill John Baker called the attacks on Warren by Trump and his supporters “incredibly offensive and distasteful.”
The question of Warren’s heritage has taken on a new life with speculation about whether Clinton may tap her as a running mate.
Brown, a Trump supporter, has criticized Warren and recently suggested she take a DNA test — tests that Cherokee Nation officials say are unreliable and don’t determine one’s tribe.