Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” guest host Jim Acosta asked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) if President Donald Trump’s “Pocahontas” nickname for her was “disrespectful” to Native Americans.
Partial transcript as follows:
ACOSTA: Does that get under your skin when he does that, and do you want to run for president in 2020?
WARREN: I am not running for president in 2020, but let me tell you my story. My mother and dad were born and raised in Oklahoma. My father fell in love with my mother when they were both still teenagers, and he was just head over heels over her but his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part Native American.
ACOSTA: But does that bother you when the President calls you Pocahontas? Do you think he’s being disrespectful to Native Americans when he does that? Doesn’t that bother you because of your family’s heritage?
WARREN: Look, this is what I was trying to tell you. It’s about my family’s story because my family’s story is deeply apart of me and apart of my brothers. It’s what we learned from our parents. It’s what we learned from our grandparents, it’s what we learned from our aunts and uncles. I went to speak to native American tribal leaders and I made a promise to them, that every time President Trump wants to try to throw out some kind of racial slur, he wants to try to attack me, I’m going to use it as a chance to lift up their stories and I’m going to do that right now. By pointing out that more than half of all native women in this country have been the victims of sexual violence and more than half of them are attacked by nonnatives and the American government is doing nothing about this. This is an issue that’s happening right here in America. Native women are subjected to sexual violence at rates much higher than any other group in our country. We need to put some focus on this and we need to make some changes on this. We owe it to people living in native communities.
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