Donald Trump Calls Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas

Warren, senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, has given steady and vocal opposition to Trump as she speaks and tweets warnings of what a Trump presidency would bring. During her speech Tuesday at the Center for Popular Democracy’s gala she used the presumptive GOP nominee’s response to the 2008 financial crisis as a way to highlight his selfish and dishonest characteristics.

“What kind of a man roots for people to get thrown out of their houses? What kind of a man roots for people to get thrown out of their jobs? To root for people to lose their pensions?” Warren asked.

“I’ll tell you exactly what kind of a man does that,” she said. “It is a man who cares about no one but himself. A small, insecure, money-grubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes a profit off it.”

Trump has taken notice of Warren’s crusade and responded with now traditional Trump tactics by retaliating with insults of his own and using the controversy as a way to compliment himself. During a press conference Thursday in North Dakota, Trump responded to a reporter’s question by asking “Who? Pocahontas?” to clarify they were speaking about Warren. Another reporter, Native American Nicole Robertson, spoke up and said “That’s very offensive.”

“Is that offensive? You tell me,” Trump responded. He then said the term again and went on to say that Warren’s tweets don’t get much attention but people take notice when he posts about her.

Yahoo News spoke with Robertson about her calling Trump out and she told them she was not surprised by his use of “Pocahontas.” She also made clear the issue she has is the appropriateness of using that word as opposed to Trump rehashing the controversy Warren faced in her 2012 election campaign. Controversy arose when reports came out that Warren listed herself as Native American while teaching at Harvard Law.

“People still have stereotypes of indigenous people, and calling a Native American woman ‘Pocahontas’ by any means is not doing us any justice. In fact, it’s putting us back into the Dark Ages,” Robertson said.

Amanda Blackhorse, a Navajo social worker and activist, explained the term “Pocahontas” as a “hypersexualized sort of stereotype” in a conversation with Yahoo News. Blackhorse also stated that Native American women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by non-native men.