Washington – Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren has apologized to the Cherokee Nation for taking a DNA test in a widely criticized effort to prove her claims to Native American ancestry, the tribe said on Friday.
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Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, called Bill John Baker, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, on Thursday to apologize for taking the DNA test last year, said Julie Hubbard, a Cherokee Nation spokeswoman.
“It was a brief and private conversation but I understand that she did apologize for causing confusion on tribal sovereignty and tribal citizenship and the harm that has resulted,” Hubbard said in a statement.
The chief and other tribal leaders appreciate that Warren “reaffirmed she is not a Cherokee Nation citizen – or a citizen of any tribal nation,” Hubbard said.
A Warren spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
Warren angered tribal leaders and some of her fellow Democrats when she decided to take the test to put to rest criticism from Republicans of her ancestry claims.
The most notable critic has been Republican President Donald Trump, who frequently belittles Warren by calling her “Pocahontas.”
The results found Warren had at least one Native American ancestor many generations ago. But Native American leaders criticized Warren for using a DNA test to lay claim to even a vague connection to a tribal nation, saying culture and sovereignty were just as important as blood and the tests did not confer the rights of tribal citizenship.
Democrats feared Warren was playing into the hands of Trump and other Republicans by engaging them on the issue.
Warren has created an exploratory committee to begin raising money and hiring staff for a run at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. She is expected to formally launch her campaign later this month.
At a campaign stop in Sioux City, Iowa, last month, Warren told a voter who expressed concern about the decision that given the political attacks, she had decided “to put it all out there.”
“I am not a person of color. I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes, and only tribes, determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference,” Warren said.
Loser! She’s not getting near the nomination.
She’s to radical. Frankly the whole democrats are!
She’s a clown like the rest of the democratic field. They will say anything just to get elected.
Not even if she apologized for pretending to be native American just to get a job i will believe get as this lying scum is just half apologizing because of her presidential run.
the whole thing is stupid…. If she wants to have a DNA check, so is that so terrible that she MUST apologize? Stupidity, pure and simple…
Trump wins again!
The thing is Fauxcahontas has lived a long all her life. She got where she is by claiming she’s American Indian.
I thought the media praised her as a hero for standing up to trump. Now she appologized?
“I am not a person of color. I am not a citizen of a tribe. Tribal citizenship is very different from ancestry. Tribes, and only tribes, determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference,” Warren said.
She should have punctuated that hogwash with war whoops.
She didn’t apologize for standing up to Trump. What does one thing have to do with another
Its obviously beyond the comprehension of troll posters 1-6 above, but American Indian tribes each have their own rules for tribal membership and deem to protect their sacred practices, cultures and languages the same as Jews have done. Warren was 100% right to have her DNA tested, which totally confirmed her family’s oral tradition that she had an American Indian ancestor. Her apology to the Cherokees was about her claim to be part culturally Cherokee, which she is not, and which is a very sensitive issue with them. The lame attempts to defame her by the kapo trolls who visit VIN to sow discord are ignorant and vomitous. She’s not my favorite, but she has the guts and brains to fight for the underdogs against the alt-right pigs that support herr trumpf.
Trump just made her irrelevant for 2020. MAGA
She needs to apologize to the American people! And she needs to pay up to Trump, after she lost the bet he made that she ain’t no real Pocahontas! What a joke she is….I sure hope she becomes the democrat nominee for pres,! Lol