President Donald Trump sure does love his nicknames ― and surely he must be glad to see any of them pop up on Fox News.
Tucker Carlson’s Wednesday evening broadcast featured one such moment with this scornfully racist chyron: “Pocahontas 2020?”
“Pocahontas,” of course, is Trump’s nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) ― a reference to her family claims about a distant Native American ancestor. Warren announced this week that she is considering a run for president in 2020.
CNN media critic Brian Stelter called out Fox News on Thursday for the tasteless message, which appeared during a conversation between Carlson and conservative commentator Tammy Bruce.
“Fox’s 8pm show parroting Trump, putting a racial slur right on screen,” Stelter wrote in a tweet.
Trump started belittling Warren with the pejorative term for Native heritage well before his election, speaking to crowds on the presidential campaign trail. (He’s found other ways to mock Warren’s ancestry claim, too.)
On “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Bruce argued that as a presidential candidate, Warren would “split the Bernie Sanders vote.” Neither she nor Carlson appeared to use the Pocahontas reference on air.
In October, Warren released the results of a DNA test that indicated she had a Native American ancestor six to 10 generations ago. The right widely mocked the senator for releasing the test results. She also earned criticism from some Native American advocates who said DNA tests are no way “to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation” and that this kind of genetic focus undermined Native interests.
Warren has maintained that she never used her marginal Native American ancestry to secure a job.