It seems “Trump 2.0” hasn’t quite caught on. Not long after Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted Donald Trump in an Ohio speech Monday the man she called a “thin-skinned bully” lobbed a series of insults at Warren, calling her a “racist” and re-upping his own racially-charged nickname for her, “Pocahontas.”
In an interview with NBC News, Trump called Warren one of the “least productive Senators in the United States Senate” and accused her of lying about her heritage.
“She said she’s 5% Native American. She was unable to prove it,” Trump said. “Elizabeth Warren is a total fraud. I know it.”
The response comes in the wake of a written statement from Trump that hit Warren, not on race or heritage, but on her willingness to support Clinton despite the former Secretary of State’s ties to Wall Street. “This sad attempt at pandering to the Sanders wing is another example of a typical political calculation by D.C. insiders,” the statement said.
But over the phone, it appears, Trump was sticking to the script that landed him in first place in the Republican presidential primary, despite Republican hopes that he would pivot to a more “presidential” tone for the general election.
Trump was not the only Republican going after Warren on Monday. Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown suggested on a campaign call that Warren should take a DNA test to prove her heritage, CNN reports.
“She’s not Native American, she’s not 1/32nd, she has no Native American background, except for what her family told her,” Brown said. “The easy answer, as you all know, is that Harvard and Penn can release those records, she can authorize the release of those records, she can take a DNA test, she can release the records herself. There’s never been any effort.”
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