openpolitics.com

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had said she would not “sit quietly” as President Trump made claims about her ancestry that she called racist. On Monday morning, she released a DNA testthat suggested she did have a distant Native American ancestor, and by the evening, she was using the ensuing dust-up to attack Trump.

“I’m going to get one of those little [DNA testing] kits and in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims she’s of Indian heritage … ‚” Trump said. “And we will say, ‘I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.’ “

“And let’s see what she does,” Trump continued. “I have a feeling she will say no, but we’ll hold that for the debates. Do me a favor. Keep it within this room?”

.. But by 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Warren took to Twitter to go after Trump, explain why she released a test that suggested she was correct about her heritage, and to reiterate that heritage played no role in her professional pursuits. She also acknowledged that tribal affiliation is determined only by tribal nations.

.. “Remember saying on 7/5 that you’d give $1M to a charity of my choice if my DNA showed Native American ancestry?” she tweeted. “I remember — and here’s the verdict. Please send the check to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.”

The charity she chose is an organization that seeks to protect Native American women from violence.

.. Warren said she took the test because she had “nothing to hide” — then dared Trump to release his tax returns.

.. Another reporter brought up his promise of a $1 million charity donation.

“I didn’t say that,” Trump said. “Nah, you’d better read it again.”

Soon after, the Hill posted a fact-checked headline: “Trump denies offering $1 million for Warren DNA test, even though he did.”

.. Earlier Monday, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, dismissed Warren’s DNA test as “junk science,” an early indication that Trump is unlikely to follow through on the donation promise he denies having made.

“I haven’t looked at the test. I know that everybody likes to pick their junk science or sound science depending on the conclusion, it seems some days,” Conway told reporters. “But I haven’t looked at the DNA test and it really doesn’t interest me … ”

.. On Monday afternoon, Trump was again asked by a reporter about the donation, and this time he said he would “only do it if I can test her personally.”

“That will not be something I enjoy doing either,” he added.

.. Trump has had a long history of making bold pledges to donate large sums of money to charity, without actually delivering on those promises, as The Washington Post’s David A. Fahrenthold uncovered in a series of articles that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.