The Slatest

Classy Trump Buddy Makes Fun of Elizabeth Warren With Mock Native American War Cry

Paul LePage, Maine’s Republican governor who has been described as both a “proto-Trump” and “America’s craziest governor,” has a long history of saying outrageously offensive things, many of them racist. (Exhibit A: “D-Money.”) So when he announced that he was going to take part in a Donald Trump rally in Bangor on Wednesday, I fired up the live-stream expecting to see the two feed off each other in some horrifying race-themed version of the Penis Game. But before either man had the chance to take the stage, this happened:

That’s Howie Carr, a Boston-based conservative radio host, doing a mock Native American war cry to deride Elizabeth Warren, who claimed Cherokee ancestry during her academic career. Republicans say she made it up to benefit from affirmative action, which Warren denies (as does the evidence). But Trump has an ongoing infatuation with calling Warren “Pocahontas” at every chance he gets, which many Native Americans find more than a little offensive.

Two quick thoughts on this:

1) In the big bucket of Trump-sanctioned racism, a mock war cry from a guy who introduced the guy who introduced the candidate is but a drop. Still, if this were anyone but Trump we were talking about, he or she would be pressured to condemn the remarks. Trump, though, has dulled everyone’s senses with a year’s worth of controversy, so this barely registers.

2.) If Hillary Clinton really does pick Warren as her running mate, that decision won’t just excite the left, it will also infuriate many on the right. And, as we’ve seen for a while now, a not insignificant slice of that anger is going to come out in the form of Native American–themed taunts directed at Warren. That’s certainly not going to make Team Trump look less racist than it already does.

Elsewhere in Slate: No, Elizabeth Warren Can’t Take a DNA Test to Prove She’s Cherokee