CNN—working off a story originally reported on by Politico—reports that President Of The United States Donald Trump continues to refer to his political opponent Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” in meetings with members of the Senate. In the midst ofone such meeting—in which he also brought up his ongoing beliefs about voter fraud in the 2016 election—Trump apparently told Democrats that he was happy “Pocahontas is now the face of your party,” referring to the support Warren received after being silenced during the confirmation hearings for Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“Pocahontas” was Trump’s frequent nickname for Warren during the campaign, based on the idea that she claimed Native American heritage on a directory of American law students without adequate evidence to back it up, and also on the fact that Trump is a small-minded bully who thinks repeating the same joke over, and over, and over again is funny. So, hey, so much for the hope that the presidency might sand off at least that particular rough, ugly edge on his character. In any case, Warren continues to be a popular figure; Twitter users reappropriated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s description of the behavior that eventually got her cut off during the Sessions sessions—in which she read a letter condemning Sessions’ civil rights record, written by Coretta Scott King—into a message of empowerment: “She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”