The Massachusetts Democrat, weighing a presidential run in 2020, is trying to rebut President Trump’s mocking of her claims about her heritage
WASHINGTON — Signaling even more strongly her intent to run for president, and to forcefully confront President Trump, Senator Elizabeth Warren on Monday released the results of a DNA test that she said indicated she had Native American ancestry.
There is “strong evidence” that Ms. Warren has Native American pedigree “6-10 generations ago,” according to a document she released from Carlos Bustamante, a renowned geneticist from Stanford University. The error rate is less than one-in-a-thousand, he said.
In releasing a DNA test, Ms. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, was rebutting the taunts of Mr. Trump and other conservatives, who have mocked her as “Pocahontas” and claimed she used her heritage to gain an advantage when she was a law professor.
But she also went further, creating a fact-check website that details her Indian ancestry, Oklahoma roots and includes documents that she says make clear her heritage “had no role whatsoever” in her academic career.
And in a carefully-choreographed video that featured interviews with her conservative relatives, her former law school colleagues and Dr. Bustamante — as well as clips of the president mocking her — Ms. Warren fires what amounts to a warning shot against Mr. Trump.
It features footage from a rally Mr. Trump held earlier this year in which he vowed to contribute $1 million to Ms. Warren’s favorite charity if she took a DNA test and it showed she had Native American roots.
Then, as she talks to the geneticist over a speaker phone, Ms. Warren says: “Now the president likes to call my mother a liar, what do the facts say?” before she is told she “absolutely” has Native American ancestry.
The video is only the latest element of a monthslong effort by Ms. Warren, who is facing re-election next month, to prepare for a presidential bid an inoculate herself against attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. She previously disclosed academic records indicating she did not use her ancestry to win preferential treatment as a law professor, released 10 years of tax returns and has sought to cultivate ties with the country’s Native American tribes.
While she has not formally said she intends to run for president, this pre-emptive public relations offensive indicates not only that she is all but certain to enter the race, but that she intends to strenuously avoid being vulnerable to the sort of slashing opposition research campaigns that have felled past White House hopefuls.
Attempting to repurpose Mr. Trump’s attacks on her as an attempt to ridicule her family, Ms. Warren concludes the five-and-a-half minute video with swelling music and a broadside against the president.
“My parents were real people, the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, the story they lived will always be on my heart,” she said. “And no one, not even the President of the United States, will ever take it away from me.”
Also featured in the video are her three brothers, and other relatives who still live in her native Oklahoma, who declare their Republican loyalties but call the president’s belittling nickname “ridiculous” and “silly”
In an email responding to whether Mr. Trump would contribute the $1 million to charity he promised, White House spokesman Raj Shah said he was “sure there’ll be a response today.”
