Elizabeth Warren Wonders Why Voters Would Choose Candidate Who ‘Lies to Them’ After Falsely Claiming Native American Heritage

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks Sunday, Jan. 19,
Andrew Harnik/AP Photo
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Sunday openly wondered why the American people would support a presidential candidate who “lies to them,” failing to address the long list of falsities she has promoted over the years.

CBS News reporter Zak Hudak asked Warren if it is “disqualifying for a presidential candidate to lie to the American public about anything.”

“I would think that it — you know, how could the American people want someone who lies to them?” Warren asked. “I think that we just do our best out there every day, and I hope that’s what happens with everyone”:

On Sunday, the New York Times endorsed Warren, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), praising the Massachusetts senator as a “gifted storyteller.” That much, as Warren has demonstrated throughout the years, is true. She has a documented history of fabricating her past and positions, particularly on the campaign trail.

Most famously, Warren falsely claimed Native American heritage for years, identifying as a Native American on her Texas Bar registration card and identifying as a minority at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Harvard Law School. She also told a reporter in 2012 that she had “plenty of pictures” proving her claims of Native American ancestry but refused to show them. She only relented after a DNA test revealed that she, at best, had 1/64th Native lineage and, at worst, 1/1,024th. The results effectively ended her claims of Cherokee heritage, specifically.

“I shouldn’t have done it. I am not a person of color. I am not a citizen of a tribe,” Warren said during a New Hampshire town hall in December.

“And I have apologized for the confusion I have caused on tribal citizenship, tribal sovereignty, and for any harm I have caused,” she added:

That is not the only aspect of Warren’s life that she has purportedly misrepresented. She claimed in August that she was effectively fired from her job teaching special needs children at a public school job for being “visibly pregnant.”

“By the end of my first year in teaching, I was visibly pregnant. And the principal did what principals did in those days: Wished me luck and hired someone else for the job,” she claimed.

To the contrary, county records show that she resigned and was unanimously approved for another year:

Warren also recounted the story in a strikingly different way in 2007:

And my first year of post graduation, I worked — it was within a public school system, but I worked with the children with disabilities. And I did that for a year. And then that summer — I actually didn’t have the education courses, so I was on an “emergency certificate,” it was called. And I went back to graduate school, and took a couple of courses in education, and said, “I don’t think this is going to work out for me.” And I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby, and I stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking what am I going to do.

Warren has also muddied the waters regarding her children’s attendance to public school.

“I read that your children went to private schools,” school choice activist Sarah Carpenter told Warren last year.

The presidential hopeful denied the report.

“No, my children went to public schools,” Warren said, failing to mention that her son, Alex Warren, also attended a private school:

The questions surrounding Warren’s honesty erupted during the Democrat debate in Des Moines, Iowa, last week. The debate followed reports alleging Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) telling Warren, during a private meeting in 2018, that he did not think a woman could win the presidency. Sanders vehemently denied the allegation during the debate, leading to a tense exchange between the two following the conclusion of the debate.

“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Warren told Sanders after refusing to shake his hand.

“You know, let’s not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion,” Sanders said, adding, “You called me a liar. You told me — all right, let’s not do it now”:

Monday’s RealClearPolitics average showed Warren in third place with 14.8 percent support.

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