Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., apparently wasn't aware of the can of worms she would open when she responded to President Trump's tweet mocking global-warming activists by declaring "I believe in science."
Trump tweeted Thursday: "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!"
Warren responded: "I'm going to say something really crazy: I believe in science. Climate change is real and we have a moral obligation to protect this Earth for our children and grandchildren."
I’m going to say something really crazy: I believe in science. Climate change is real and we have a moral obligation to protect this Earth for our children and grandchildren.
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) December 29, 2017
Her tweet, however, was met with actor James Woods and others offering her an education in science on topics such as DNA, gender and unborn children, the Daily Wire reported.
DNA is also based in science. Yours does not show you are Native American. So either you are an outright liar or you actually don’t believe in science. Which is it, #Liewatha https://t.co/Iq3T89Wnwt
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) December 29, 2017
Woods, who this week took Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., to task for smearing Trump supporters, brought up Warren's dubious claim that she has Native American ancestry.
"DNA is also based in science. Yours does not show you are Native American. So either you are an outright liar or you actually don’t believe in science. Which is it, #Liewatha"
The Native American issue arose in Warren's 2012 run for the U.S. Senate with allegations she used the claim to her advantage in her academic career.
Now do the science of fetal development https://t.co/H5vnH6EA5b
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 29, 2017
HOW MANY GENDERS ARE THERE, SCIENCE LADY? https://t.co/xY1ZSLouum
— David Reaboi (@davereaboi) December 29, 2017
Harvard boasted of 'Native American' prof
A month after the issue of her ancestry surfaced, Warren finally acknowledged that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania she was Native American, but she insisted it played no role in her recruitment by those institutions.
Previously, she said she first learned Harvard was claiming her as a minority when she read it in the conservative Boston Herald in 2012. However, the Boston Globe reported at the time that it had obtained records from Harvard’s library showing that the university’s law school began reporting a Native American female professor in federal statistics for the 1992-93 school year, the first year Warren worked at Harvard, as a visiting professor.
In addition, her name appeared in a 1996 article in the Harvard Crimson campus newspaper about Harvard Law School students expressing dissatisfaction with the faculty's level of diversity.
A law-school spokesman told the paper Warren is Native American.
Warren has described herself as having Cherokee and Delaware Indian ancestry, pointing to "family stories" told "by my mom and my dad, my mammaw and my pappaw."
However, the Atlantic reported in May 2012 that Warren was "unable to point to evidence of Native heritage except for an unsubstantiated thirdhand report that she might be 1/32 Cherokee."
"Even if it could be proven, it wouldn't qualify her to be a member of a tribe," the magazine said.
The Washington Post's Fact Checker column was unable to prove Warren's claimed heritage, advising "readers to look into it on their own and decide whether Trump's attacks over Warren's background have merit."
In June 2016, after Warren's first campaign appearance with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump tweeted that Warren "lied on heritage." Since then, he often has referred to her as "Fauxcahontas" or "Pocahontas."
Last month, after Trump used the dig during a ceremony at the White House honoring World War II Navajo code talkers, Warren sent out a fundraising email accusing Trump of attacking her with a "racist slur."