Donald Trump's "Pocahontas" Nickname for Elizabeth Warren Has Been Around for Years

One of the first defining traits of Donald Trump's political life was his ability to find nicknames for his political opponents. There was "Liddle Marco" and "Lyin' Ted" and "Crooked Hilary" and "Sleepy Joe" and for Elizabeth Warren, "Pocahontas."

Trump revived that nickname at his first joint address to Congress, leading some to wonder where it comes from and why it has been attached to Warren. Here's what we know about the nickname's origins.

Trump's "Pocahontas" nickname dates back years, and is a reference to one of the oldest scandals of Warren's political life. The controversy started in the 1980s and 1990s, when Warren formally notified Yale and Harvard Law Schools, where she taught, that she was of Native American ancestry. This allowed both schools to list her as a Native American faculty member.

While both Warren and the schools have denied that Warren used this claim to advance her career, the controversy has marked her career for years, in part because she appears to be a white woman.

"These are my family stories. This is what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad, my Mamaw and my Papaw. This is our lives. And I'm very proud of it," she said in defense of her claim.

Warren even took a DNA test, which proved that she had some Native American ancestry, albeit several generations back.

"While the vast majority of the individual’s ancestry is European, the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor in the individual’s pedigree, likely in the range of 6-10 generations ago," the report explained.

What seems clear, then, is that Warren does have some Native American ancestry.

Trump nevertheless decided to make an issue of the claim, arguing that Warren's claim to Native American ancestry was largely invented. There are some even on the left who found what Warren did offensive, in part because, even though she has some Native American ancestry, her ancestry is predominantly white, and it seems like a claim at least partially designed to make Warren seem less white than she is.

Warren's claims to Native American ancestry, and the idea that she could be listed as Native American by staff is definitely questionable.

What's also true, though, is that Trump's nickname for Warren is racist and offensive in and of itself. The name is obviously a reference to one of the most famous Native Americans, and seems designed to go after both Warren's claims and the very idea that Native American ancestry is something to be proud of.

While Warren is no longer one of Trump's primary political rivals, it seems he hasn't forgotten about his nickname for her. The controversy is pretty firmly in Warren's past, but Trump has always been good at honing in on the most controversial quality of his opponents. Pocahontas is an old nickname, but clearly, it's one that Trump thinks still has plenty of juice.