DNA test shows Elizabeth Warren does have Native American ancestry in rebuff to Trump's insults

Elizabeth Warren – the American senator mocked by Donald Trump as “Pocahontas” for her talk of Native American ancestry – has released a DNA test showing “strong support” for her heritage claims

The Massachusetts Democratic senator has been repeatedly attacked by Mr Trump who has suggested she invented Native American ancestry to get ahead in her legal career before she entered politics.

But now Ms Warren has published the results of a genetic test which show that while the “vast majority” of her DNA is European, she also had a Native American in her family tree about six to ten generations ago.

While tweeting out links to the findings, she wrote: “I never expected my family’s story to be used as a racist political joke, but I don’t take any fight lying down.”

She has also released a video which follows her returning to her family home in Oklahoma and interviewing her Republican-voting brothers and other family members about the Pocahontas controversy.

The unexpected disclosure is being interpreted an attempt by Ms Warren, who is widely tipped to run for president in 2020, to defuse the row with Mr Trump.

As well as the DNA results, she has also given the Boston Globe newspaper personnel files, tax returns and other documents which show that her slight Native American ethnicity was never used to help her advance in her legal career.

Last month, Ms Warren she would take a “hard look” at running for the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Mr Trump in 2020

Ms Warren first rose to prominence as the chair of the panel overseeing the US government’s bailout and stimulus programme following the 2008 financial crisis.

In recent years she has become one of the fiercest public opponents of Mr Trump, frequently engaging in slanging matches with the pugnacious candidate and then president, sometimes via Twitter.

In 2016 during the presidential campaign, Ms Warren described the then Republican candidate as “a man who cares about no one but himself”.

“A small, insecure, money-grubber who doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as he makes a profit off it.”

Trump has hit back, first calling her “goofy” and a “total failure”. He then picked up on a theme of Ms Warren’s contentious election to the senate in 2012 and began accusing her of faking Native American heritage to get hired by a string of prestigious law schools.

“I will give you a million dollars to your favourite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian,” he said at a rally in July. “I have a feeling she will say no.”

Mr Trump most recently repeated his racial slur of calling her Pocahontas last month, when he launched an attack on the Massachusetts senator at a rally in West Virginia.

However, when Trump was asked about the DNA test on Monday, he said, “Who cares?” as he left Washington to visit hurricane-stricken areas in Florida and Georgia.

Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Mr Trump, told CNN that the video was “odd” and wrote off the DNA results.

“I haven't looked at the test,” Ms Conway said. “I know that everybody likes to pick their junk science and sound science depending on the conclusion it seems some days. But I haven't looked at the DNA test and it really doesn't interest me to be frank with you.”

Native American groups have previously condemned Mr Trump for using the word Pocahintas.

“We honour the contributions of Pocahontas, a hero to her people, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe in Virginia, who reached across uncertain boundaries and brought people together,” the National Congress of American Indians said in a statement.

“Once again, we call upon the president to refrain from using her name in a way that denigrates her legacy.”

Other Republicans have also locked horns with the combative Ms Warren. Last week, an email from 2017 written by the White House chief of staff John Kelly emerged, in which he described the combative senator as an “impolite, arrogant woman” after she called him about the Trump administration’s travel ban.

In response the Democrat tweeted: “Was I tough on John Kelly in that phone call? You bet I was. Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump can’t shut me up -- and neither can John Kelly.”

Many progressive activists have been urging Ms Warren to run against Mr Trump in the 2020 election. The 69-year-old has not confirmed any plans but told supporters that after the mid-term elections next month she will “take a hard look at running“.

Her decision to hit back against Mr Trump’s racially-charged baiting will only serve to heighten speculation she intends to throw her name into the hat for the Democratic nomination.

Barack Obama executed a similar policy in 2011 when he defused his own racist conspiracy theory promoted by Mr Trump – that he was secretly born in Kenya and not an American citizen – by releasing his birth certificate before successfully winning re-election in 2012.