In Iowa, Warren Faces Question on DNA Test

There are a whopping 666 days to go until the 2020 presidential election, but potential candidate Elizabeth Warren was in Iowa this weekend and faced a question on the subject of her claim to Cherokee ancestry: "Why did you undergo the DNA testing and give Donald Trump more fodder to be a bully?" asked the first questioner on Saturday, per USA Today. Warren released test results in October that showed "strong evidence" of Native American ancestry; they were denounced by the Cherokee Nation as "inappropriate and wrong." Responded the Massachusetts senator, per CNN: "I am not a person of color. I am not a citizen of a tribe. ... Tribes—and only tribes—determine tribal citizenship, and I respect that difference" between ancestry and citizenship.

She defended her decision to release the results, saying she wanted to "put it all out there." Both USA Today and CNN note that voters seemed less concerned with any affront to Native Americans and more concerned that Warren had set herself up as a bigger target for President Trump, who has mocked her as "Pocahontas." "It's just playing into his hands," said one voter. "It's getting onto his turf, and he knows how to handle his turf. And so I'm not sure she should have gotten into it, but anyway I hope she learned from it." (Trump, meanwhile, said he would love to run against Warren.)