Warren Dodges on Taking DNA Test to Prove Native American heritage

ROBERTS: Well, I know that you’re looking ahead to November as opposed to 2020, but indulge me a moment here if you would. There are many people who are saying should you choose to run in 2020, and one of these groups is the Berkshire Eagle, Massachusetts newspaper that endorsed you in 2012, that the issue of your ancestry will come up and they’re suggesting that you put it to rest saying, quote: Elizabeth Warren should screw up her courage and take the spit test, a DNA test, a positive test would permanently resolve the issue while possibly shutting down President Trump.

Would you be willing to take a DNA test to put this issue to rest?

WARREN: Look, let’s start again, where you started. I’m not running for president. But let me tell you a little bit about my family.

You know, my mom and dad were born and raised out in Oklahoma, and my daddy was in his teens when he fell in love with my mother. She was a beautiful girl who played the piano. And he was head over heels in love with her and wanted to marry her. And his family was bitterly opposed to that because she was part Native American. 

And eventually my parents eloped and they survived the Great Depression, they survived the Dust Bowl. They went through a lot of hard times. They raised three boys, my older brothers all of whom went off to the military. They raised me.

They knocked around and it was tough but they hung together. They hung together for 63 years. I know who I am because of what my mother and my father told me, what my grandmother and my grandfather told me, what all my aunts and uncles told me and my brothers.

It’s a part of who I am and no one’s ever going to take that away.

ROBERTS: Senator Warren, we’ll leave it there. Thanks so much for joining us today and on behalf of Chris Wallace, please come back.

WARREN: Thank you, I’d love to.

ROBERTS: All right. Appreciate it.