President Trump was in Montana on Thursday for a campaign rally intended to inflict political damage on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, but the Senator was not the President’s only target.
After making swipes at Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters and even Republican Sen. John McCain and former president George H.W. Bush, Trump turned his attention to an old rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Returning to the Pocahontas slur that he has used for the Senator who has Native American heritage, Trump offered an apology—kind of.
“Pocahontas, they always want me to apologize for saying it. I want to apologize,” Trump said. “Pocahontas, I apologize to you. I apologize to you. To you I apologize. To the fake Pocahontas, I won’t apologize.”
Trump frequently took to calling Warren by the nickname Pocahontas during his presidential campaign, both to mock her ties to the Native American community and to call into question whether the claims were true. According to one account, Trump called Warren Pocahontas at least 26 times between 2014 and the end of 2017.
But then Trump took it one step further on Thursday, suggesting that if Warren were to win the Democratic nomination in 2020 and they were to debate, he would call on her to take an ancestry test. “You know those little kits they sell on television for $2? Learn your heritage,” Trump told the audience.
“I’m going to get one of those little kits and in the middle of the debate,” Trump said, “we will say, I will give you a million dollars, paid for by Trump, to your favorite charity if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.”
“I have a feeling she will say no,” he added.
He also suggested that when he gives her “that little kit, we have to do it gently because we’re in the ‘Me Too’ generation, we have to be very gentle.”
Following the rally, Warren replied on Twitter, suggesting that while Trump “obsesses over [her] genes,” his administration is “conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order.”
Warren was referring to an announcement from Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that the agency will be conducting cheek-swab DNA tests to verify the matches between children and parents who were separated at the U.S.—Mexico border.
“Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you’re destroying,” she concluded.
Hey, @realDonaldTrump: While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you're destroying.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 5, 2018