According to the narrative beloved by conservative media, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is an inveterate liar whose duplicity extends to her family history -- or, at the very least, to her understanding of it.
Every time a Fox News figurehead mentions Warren's claim to have Native American heritage -- which is, essentially, every time anyone on Fox News mention her name -- they neglect to mention that Warren was not speaking about her genetic birthright, but about "family stories…what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad, my mammaw and my pappaw."
But that's not how her opponents characterize her claim, as Scott Brown -- who lost his Senate seat to her in 2012 -- reminded everyone on Monday when he called for Warren to prove her Native American ancestry by submitting to a DNA test.
For his part, Trump reacted to Warren joining Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail by saying "I hope that she's selected as the vice presidential running mate -- I will speak very openly about her if she is. She is one of the least productive senators in the United States senate -- we call her 'Pocahontas' for a reason."
Whether he was aware that he just slurred Native Americans -- apparently they are not as "productive" as their American counterparts -- is debatable, but what is not up for debate is that Joe Scarborough does not think this is a winning rhetorical strategy for the Republican candidate.
On Morning Joe Tuesday, he said that "this is when you know you’re losing a debate -- when your opponent is talking about working class Americans, and fighting hard to bring working class Americans back into the mainstream of American economic life, but you're talking about whether someone is 1/32 Native American and suggesting DNA testing."
"What the hell is wrong with them?" Scarborough asked. "Are they stupid? Are they stupid?" After complaining that this isn't quite the "presidential turn" the candidate promised after becoming the presumptive nominee, Scarborough said that "if you're going to turn the page, you turn the page."
"But you can't keep turning back," he added. "They’ve got to be disciplined up and down the line. This ‘Pocahontas’ nonsense, this ‘goofy’ nonsense, they’ve got to stop -- it doesn’t work. It makes them look small in the general election."
Watch the entire segment below via MSNBC.
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