Elizabeth Warren's DNA Ancestry Test Shows She Didn't 'Fake' Native American Heritage

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) revealed her DNA test result Monday which showed “strong evidence’’ that she had a Native American ancestor. The report came after a mocking statement from President Donald Trump who claimed she "faked her heritage,” adding: “I have more Indian blood in me than her, and I have none.”

Warren provided the test results to the Boston Globe, the newspaper said “in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years.” According to the paper, the disclosure was a strong sign she was seriously considering running for president in 2020.

“The vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European but “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor” six to 10 generations ago, according to Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor who analyzed the results.

Warren has said her great-great-great-grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, was partially Native American.

“I’m going to get one of those little kits, and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she’s of Indian heritage because her mother says she has high cheekbones, we will take that little kit,” Trump said at a rally in July. “But we have to do it gently because we’re in the Me Too generation, so we have to be very gentle.”

At a 2017 event honoring Navajo Code Talkers, Trump referred to Warren as "Pocahontas," a move criticized by Native American leaders, Democrats and even Warren.

"It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur," the senator said in response.

Claudia Fox Tree, a board member of the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness said about Trump's comment at the time: “I think it is insulting... “I think he really needs to stop using the word and using it in a derogatory way that offends indigenous people as well as non-indigenous people who know their history."

On Monday, Warren's office also released a video to YouTube, "Elizabeth Warren's family story," which directly addresses the attacks on her heritage by the president.

"I never expected my family’s story to be used as a racist political joke, but I don’t take any fight lying down. I want you to have the power to fight lies with the truth, so here's a new site for you to review every document for yourself," she wrote in a tweet.