Donald Trump sparked outrage on Sunday night by invoking racially charged imagery against Native Americans to troll Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The president went after Warren on Twitter for her livestreamed Instagram segment on New Year’s Eve in which she is seen drinking a beer in her kitchen and professing her love for her husband.
Trump tweeted on Sunday: ‘If Elizabeth Warren, often referred to by me as Pocahontas, did this commercial from Bighorn or Wounded Knee instead of her kitchen, with her husband dressed in full Indian garb, it would have been a smash!’
‘Bighorn’ is presumably Little Big Horn, a river in Montana which was the site of Custer’s Last Stand during the Great Sioux War of 1876.
President Donald Trump sparked outrage on Sunday night by invoking racially charged imagery against Native Americans to troll Senator Elizabeth Warren
The President went after Warren on Twitter for her livestreamed Instagram segment on New Year’s Eve in which she is seen drinking a beer in her kitchen and professing her love for her husband
In another tweet, Trump added: ‘Best line in the Elizabeth Warren beer catastrophe is, to her husband, “Thank you for being here. I’m glad you’re here.” It’s their house, he’s supposed to be there!’
While Native American tribes won that particular battle, the war resulted in the United States taking ownership of Indian land.
Wounded Knee is a reference to a massacre of up to 300 Native American men, women, and children by the U.S. at an Indian reservation in South Dakota in 1890.
Trump has frequently referred to the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts as ‘Pocahontas’, a term meant to denigrate her claim of having partial Native American ancestry.
In another tweet, Trump added: ‘Best line in the Elizabeth Warren beer catastrophe is, to her husband, “Thank you for being here. I’m glad you’re here.”
‘It’s their house, he’s supposed to be there!’
Strangely enough, Trump deleted the initial tweet about the ‘Indian garb’, only to repost it moments later with a comma added.
Twitter users reacted angrily to Trump’s use of Native American stereotypes.
Trump has frequently referred to the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts as ‘Pocahontas’, a term meant to denigrate her claim of having partial Native American ancestry. Warren is seen far left with her husband, Bruce Mann (center), and Vice President Mike Pence last week
Trump needled Warren last week for claiming she is of Native American heritage
Amy Siskind tweeted: ‘Gee, who would have known we were in Day 23 of the longest government shutdown caused by YOU and hurting millions of Americans!
‘And yet, you find time to act like a middle school student online.’
Walter Shaub, the former ethics official who quit the Trump administration in protest, tweeted: ‘Your racist tweet is a disgrace, and it dishonors the high office you hold.’
Mike Rundle tweeted: ‘This is racist and gross.’
Another Twitter user tweeted: ‘It is exhausting and unbelievable that it is happening before our very eyes.’
Another Twitter user wrote: ‘Wounded Knee was a massacre, including of women and children.
‘It is an open wound to the Sioux.
‘Using it as an attempt at humor in a political attack is an offense to history, let alone decency.’
Trump has repeatedly needled Warren, who is said to be leaning toward a run for President, over her claim that she is part-Native American.
Last week on his Twitter account, he shared a parody ‘Warren 2020’ sign that said ‘Warren 1/2020th’ on his Twitter account.
Walter Shaub, the former ethics official who quit the Trump administration in protest, tweeted: ‘Your racist tweet is a disgrace, and it dishonors the high office you hold’
Mike Rundle tweeted: ‘This is racist and gross.’
Another Twitter user wrote: ‘Wounded Knee was a massacre, including of women and children. It is an open wound to the Sioux. Using it as an attempt at humor in a political attack is an offense to history, let alone decency’
Amy Siskind tweeted: ‘Gee, who would have known we were in Day 23 of the longest government shutdown caused by YOU and hurting millions of Americans! And yet, you find time to act like a middle school student online’
Another Twitter user tweeted: ‘It is exhausting and unbelievable that it is happening before our very eyes’
A DNA test the Democratic senator released in October found that she’s between 1/64 and 1/1024 American Indian.
Warren giddily released the results but conceded last month that she is ‘not a person of color’ in a tacit acknowledgement that prior claims about her alleged Native American heritage were overblown.
She is working hard to overcome the misstep before other possible challengers make up their minds about entering the 2020 race.
Already, she has competition from ex-San Antonio mayor Julián Castro and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who have both declared their intention to run for the Democratic nomination.
Warren took her first public step toward challenging Trump two weeks ago, when she launched a presidential exploratory committee after conspicuously changing her Twitter handle from one that plugs her Massachusetts roots to a user name that’s more generic.
She dodged questions from reporters about Trump and her DNA test as she gave her first news conference.
‘I’m in this fight because I understand what’s happening to working families,’ she said outside her home near Boston, standing alongside her husband, Bruce Mann.
Trump often refers to his the potential rival as ‘Pocahontas’ and mocked the progressive senator’s announcement that she’s exploring a run with biting remarks about her heritage and her mental health.
‘She did very badly in proving that she was of Indian heritage. That didn’t work out too well. I think you have more than she does, and maybe I do too and I have nothing,’ the president told two Fox News hosts in an interview on Monday.
But he also said in the interview that aired as part of Fox’s New Year’s Eve special that he hopes she runs for higher office.
‘We’ll see how she does,’ he said. ‘I wish her well. I hope she does well. I’d love to run against her.’
He suggested that she’s a weak candidate, however, as he said of her ability to win: ‘Well, I don’t know, you’d have to ask her psychiatrist.’
Simply connect: Elizabeth Warren swigged a beer on a live Q&A on New Year’s Day after announcing her move on a presidential run in a video mocked as a cringe-inducing attempt to copy the social media success of Beto O’Rourke and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Warren has had a rough start to her presidential bid all around. Her attempt to show that she is social media savvy on New Year’s Eve has been mercilessly made fun of.
She cracked a cold one during an Instagram live video and took a swig out of it as she spoke to fans from her kitchen alongside her husband.
‘I’m here in my kitchen, uh, and um, I thought maybe we’d just take some questions and I’d see what I can do,’ Warren said in the video. ‘Hold on a second — I’m gonna get me a beer,’ she said, stepping out of frame.
In Boston on Wednesday she revealed that she drinks Michelob Ultra, calling it the ‘club soda of beers’ as she spoke to reporters.
Warren’s mantra has been that she wants to make changes to the federal government that currently ‘works great for the wealthy and the well-connected’ but leaves millions of other Americans out in the cold.
‘This is a moment in America where people really want to get the focus back on the points that touch their lives, about things like student loans and what it costs to get a prescription filled,’ Warren said in remarks at the Massachusetts statehouse.