On Thursday night,
President Trump flew to Montana to headline a rally for Matt Rosendale, the
Republican Senate nominee running against Democrat Jon Tester this November.
CNN’s Politics
Reporter and Editor-at-Large, Chris Cillizza, didn’t watch the rally. Instead he sifted through the transcript and
proclaimed his speech “contained a number genuinely dangerous lines, lines no
President before Trump would even consider uttering among a small group of
friends─much less in front of thousands of people.” He settled on eleven statements he considers
pose a “real risk to the body populace.”
I’ll save you the
burden of reading his dreck on ten of those lines and focus on the one that was
genuinely amusing because it was the first time Trump rolled it out and it was
a real beaute.
“I shouldn’t tell you
because I don’t like giving away secrets,” Trump said. “But let’s say I’m debating Pocahontas. I promise you I’ll do this: I will take, you know those little kits they sell
on television where you learn your heritage…in the middle of the debate, when
she proclaims that she is of Indian heritage because her mother said she has
high cheekbones, that is her only evidence, her mother said we have high cheekbones," Trump continued.
“We’ll take that
little kit─but we have to do it gently.
Because we’re in the #MeToo generation, we have to do it gently. And we will very gently take that kit, and
slowly toss it, hoping it doesn’t injure her arm, and we will say: ‘I will give you a million dollars to your
favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re
an Indian.'”
Here’s what Cillizza
had to say:
Truly remarkable. In his usual riff about the questions
surrounding Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's claims of Native-American
heritage, Trump shows his true colors on the #MeToo movement. He seems to
suggest that the movement, which grew out of a series of news stories of
powerful men sexually harassing women, is about political correctness run
rampant. Trump seems to think -- or at least say -- that he has to be careful
not to offend the #MeToo movement by throwing a DNA heritage kit at Warren.
Which both deeply misunderstands what the #MeToo movement is about and
denigrates the entire idea of women feeling safe to come forward with
allegations of sexual misconduct.
According
to NBC News, yes that NBC News, there
is no documented proof [emphasis
mine] that Warren is descended from Native Americans.
Warren has not provided
any. Genealogists who have investigated her history have found her relatives to
be listed as white in historical documents like the Census and do not appear in
the Indian documents typically used to verify claims of Native American
ancestry, like the Dawes Rolls.
The New England
Historic Genealogical Society initially said they had proof that she was 1/32nd
Native American, only to later
backtrack and say they did not have definitive proof. They declined to
comment for this story.
Cherokee genealogist
Twila Barnes traced Warren's maternal family back four generations to the turn
of the 19th century; the records listed all members as white. She could not
find Warren’s family in any of the 45 Indian records and documents she
reviewed for a detailed report.
Carpe Donktum’s tweet this morning requesting the
reveal of the test results be televised and hosted by tabloid talk show host Maury
Povich inspired me.
Be honest, tossing
Warren a DNA test at a 2020 presidential debate would be ratings gold.
We already know the
results and so does she, but Trump’s zinger yesterday is going to haunt her for
the next two years.
