Fox Host Claims Native American Candidate Isn’t Actually Native American: ‘This Is Like Elizabeth Warren II’

Fox Business host Larry Kudlow claimed on Thursday that Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan (D) is “trying to push this business that she’s a Native American,” when in fact she very much is.

Flanagan won Tuesday’s U.S. Senate Democratic primary, defeating Rep. Angie Craig, and will face Republican nominee and former sportscaster Michele Tafoya in November’s general election. Tafoya appeared on Thursday’s Kudlow, where she appeared to clarify some remarks she made the day before about how it is “embarrassing” to be from Minnesota. The former NFL sideline reporter told Kudlow she is “proud to be a Minnesotan.”

Later in the interview, Kudlow hit Flanagan over her progressive record, calling her “the darling of the democratic socialists, of the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs, what they stand for, huge taxing on wealth and income, Medicare for all, which basically means they want the government to run everything in the economy.”

He then pivoted to Flanagan’s Native American heritage, and compared her to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who, citing a family rumor, for years falsely claimed she was of Cherokee ancestry:

Now, I’m told she is trying to push this business she’s a Native American, alright? This is like Elizabeth Warren II or something. She’s a Native American and she’s really fighting for her Indian rights. This is a cover-up so she doesn’t have to talk about all her socialist nostrums that you are describing.

Flanagan’s father was Marvin Manypenny, a member of the White Earth Anishinabeg Ojibway Nation. Upon his death in 2020, the Minnesota Reformer described him as “a hell raiser for American Indian sovereignty.” If Flanagan wins, she would become the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Tafoya responded to Kudlow’s prompt by criticizing identity politics.

“I think identity politics writ large is a distraction,” she said. “Someone asked me the other day, ‘Are you Hispanic or Latina?’ And I thought, ok that’s a distinction without a difference. I know there’s a technical– why does it matter?”

Watch above via Fox Business Network.

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