President Trump brutally needled Sen. Elizabeth Warren, belittling the Massachusetts Democrat with his favorite nickname for her –“Pocahontas” — during his address to the joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
The taunt came after Trump mocked Democrats for wanting to keep supporting Ukraine with military aid in its war with Russia over the next five years, which prompted Warren (D-Mass.) to clap. She kept doing so even as the president ridiculed her.
“The United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine’s defense,” Trump complained during his address, drawing rare claps from Democrats.
“You want to keep it going for another five years,” Trump shot back before singling out Warren. “Pocahontas says yes.”
Warren clapped enthusiastically and even upped the pace of her clapping with a grin on her face despite Trump’s broadside.
Trump has branded Warren “Pocahontas” for years, alluding to her controversial claims of having partial Native American heritage in her remarks to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard law schools, institutions where she taught in the 1980s and 1990s.
She was listed as Native American in a national law school directory of faculty, according to the Boston Globe, which reported on the scandal back in 2012.
The Massachusetts senator has long denied that she used her claims of partial Native American heritage to further her career.
During the 2020 campaign cycle, she revealed that a DNA test showed that the “vast majority of the individual’s ancestry is European” but that there was evidence she is the decedent of “an unadmixed Native American ancestor” going back six to 10 generations.
Trump and Republicans pilloried her for citing such a distant connection.
Warren has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine as Kyiv seeks to fend off brutal Russian invaders in an unprovoked war.
“2,000 people are being killed every single week. More than that,” Trump added after his slight against Warren. “They’re Russian young people. They’re Ukrainian young people. They’re not Americans, but I want it to stop.”
Trump ordered a pause on all US military aid to Ukraine the day before his speech to Congress.
The president proceeded to rip into European allies for spending more on Russian fossil fuels last year than on aid to war-torn Ukraine.
He also praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for penning a letter to him that in Trump’s words, said, “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.”
“Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians…we do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence,” the president said Zelensky wrote.
The Ukrainian leader had made a public overture toward Trump via X earlier Tuesday, following strained tensions in the wake of a blow-up between the two men in the Oval Office last Friday.
Vice President JD Vance had reamed out Zelensky during that meeting for not expressing more gratitude for American assistance.
Trump also claimed during his speech — which essentially functions as a State of the Union address despite not technically being one — that he has “received strong signals” from the Russians that they are “ready for peace.”
