[van id=”politics/2018/03/11/sotu-warren-full-intv.cnn”]
By Maegan Vazquez
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is pushing back at a new call to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestral claims.
On Sunday, NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd brought up a Massachusetts newspaper editorial calling on her to take a DNA test and asked, “What do you think of that idea?”
Warren responded with the story of her family’s origins.
“Let me tell you the story of my family. … My daddy first saw my mother when they were both teenagers. He fell in love with this tall, quiet girl who played the piano. Head over heels. But his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part Native American,” Warren, D-Massachusetts, told “Meet the Press.” Her parents, she said, eventually eloped.
“That’s the story that my brothers and I all learned from our mom and our dad, from our grandparents … It’s a part of me and nobody’s going to take that part of me away,” she added.
The senator’s heritage, which she has brought up at public events, has been questioned by critics, and has been a source of mockery for President Donald Trump, who refers to her as “Pocahontas.”
“I know who I am. And never used it for anything. Never got any benefit from it anywhere,” Warren said.
Warren, who says her heritage includes Cherokee and Delaware Indian roots, said Native Americans are “a group that is being injured every single day.”
“We need to bring some attention to it and we need to put some resources on it,” she added.
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