President Trump referred to liberal Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a potential 2020 presidential rival, as “Pocahontas” while honoring Navajo code talkers from World War II, and White House reporter Julie Hirschfeld Davis was not having it. Her Tuesday’s New York Times report accused Trump of inflicting a “racially charged controversy” upon the ceremony. Yet the fact that Warren long claimed a phony Native American heritage to further her academic career at Harvard apparently wasn’t in itself “racially charged.”
Davis quickly slapped the race card down on Trump alone, in “At Event for Code Talkers, Trump Again Derides Warren as ‘Pocahontas.”’
President Trump on Monday transformed a White House ceremony to honor Navajo veterans of World War II into a racially charged controversy, using the event as a platform to deride Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”
Standing in the Oval Office alongside three Navajo code talkers, whom he called “very, very special people,” Mr. Trump dispensed with his prepared remarks and took aim at Ms. Warren without naming her, resurrecting a favorite nickname as the veterans stood stonefaced.
“You were here long before any of us were here,” Mr. Trump said to the veterans, ages 90 and older, who wore their military uniforms for the occasion, juxtaposed with turquoise and silver, hallmarks of Navajo culture. “Although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago. They call her Pocahontas.”
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The comment made for an awkward moment during an otherwise uplifting event, organized to pay tribute to the contributions of the young Native Americans recruited by the United States military to create top-secret coded messages used to communicate during battles. And it was the latest instance of a president who relishes any opportunity to land a hit against a political opponent, veering sharply off-script with divisive speech and quickly setting off a furor.
Davis was suspiciously slim on the details of just why Trump would mock Warren in the first place before getting back to the anti-Trump backlash:
Mr. Trump was referring, as he often has, to Ms. Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, a former Harvard Law School professor who came under fire in 2012 after it emerged that, during her academic career, she identified herself as a minority, citing Native American roots.
The comment drew swift rebukes from Native American leaders, including one who was present for the ceremony. Russell Begaye, the president of the Navajo Nation, called the president’s mention of Pocahontas “derogatory” and “disrespectful to Indian nations.”
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Ms. Warren said the episode reflected the president’s penchant for racial slurs.
“This was a ceremony to honor war heroes: Native Americans who had put it all on the line to protect our country and to save lives of Americans and our allies,” Ms. Warren said in an interview. “It should have been a celebration of their incredible service, but Donald Trump couldn’t make it through without tossing in a racial slur.”
The White House rejected that characterization -- “a ridiculous response,” said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary -- and defended the remark.
“What most people find offensive is Senator Warren lying about her heritage to advance her career,” Ms. Sanders told reporters shortly after the ceremony.
Davis again made it a Warren vs. GOP “talking points” situation without doing any journalism about Warren’s phony ethnic heritage.
The Republican Party also rushed to the president’s defense, calling Mr. Trump’s comment a “joke,” and circulating talking points to reporters that said that Ms. Warren “lied about her ancestry for years,” and has never provided proof that she is of Native American descent.
Ms. Warren called the White House’s response “alternative facts.”
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But for Native American leaders who had worked behind the scenes with the White House to organize the ceremony, Mr. Trump’s off-topic remark reopened painful wounds.
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During the campaign, Mr. Trump’s use of Pocahontas also drew objections from a number of Native Americans, many of whom regarded the reference as offensive and divisive.
Mollie Hemingway at The Federalist filled in more of the unflattering story the Times left open, and demolished charges of racism on Trump’s part:
Warren claimed to be Native American despite there being no evidence of that claim being true. This false information was something she didn’t claim as a student, but began putting in her professional bios for a few years when law school faculties were hungry for minority faculty. Harvard University proudly proclaimed her as a minority female on the basis of information she provided. Her evidence is limited to claims other family members dispute of “folklore” and her paw-paw having “high cheekbones.” No, I’m not joking, she cited high cheekbones.... The only way the Pocahontas insult makes sense is as a joke about Warren’s false claim of being Native American. He’s not insulting her for being a Native American, because she’s not Native American. He’s highlighting how she gave employers and others false information about her tribal status while at Harvard and elsewhere.
