Fox Business host Larry Kudlow questioned Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Native American heritage Thursday, comparing the Democratic Senate candidate to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., despite Flanagan’s documented family ties to the White Earth Anishinabeg Ojibway Nation.
Flanagan won Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary Tuesday, defeating Rep. Angie Craig. She will now face Republican nominee and former sportscaster Michele Tafoya in November’s general election.
Tafoya appeared Thursday on “Kudlow,” where she addressed comments she made a day earlier about it being “embarrassing” to be from Minnesota. The former NFL sideline reporter clarified her remarks, telling Kudlow that she is “proud to be a Minnesotan.”
The conversation later turned to Flanagan and her progressive political record.
Kudlow described Flanagan as “the darling of the democratic socialists, of the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs,” while pointing to positions involving taxes, wealth, income and Medicare for All.
Kudlow argued that those policies essentially amounted to wanting “the government to run everything in the economy.”
The Fox Business host then shifted his attention to Flanagan’s Native American background, questioning whether the Democrat was emphasizing her heritage as a political strategy.
“Now, I’m told she is trying to push this business she’s a Native American, alright?” Kudlow said.
He then compared Flanagan to Warren, who for years claimed Cherokee ancestry based on a family story and later apologized to the Cherokee Nation following controversy surrounding a DNA test.
“This is like Elizabeth Warren II or something,” Kudlow said of Flanagan. “She’s a Native American and she’s really fighting for her Indian rights.”
Kudlow went on to claim that emphasizing the issue was a “cover-up” designed to keep Flanagan from having to discuss what he called her “socialist nostrums.”
Unlike Warren’s disputed Cherokee ancestry claims, however, Flanagan’s Native American heritage is established.
Flanagan’s father, Marvin Manypenny, was a member of the White Earth Anishinabeg Ojibway Nation. Following his death in 2020, the Minnesota Reformer described Manypenny as “a hell raiser for American Indian sovereignty” and treaty rights.
If Flanagan defeats Tafoya in November, she would become the first Native American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
Tafoya responded to Kudlow’s comments by taking aim at the broader use of identity politics.
“I think identity politics writ large is a distraction,” Tafoya said.
The Republican nominee recalled recently being asked whether she considered herself Hispanic or Latina.
“And I thought, ok that’s a distinction without a difference,” Tafoya said, before acknowledging there was a technical distinction and questioning its significance.
“Why does it matter?” she asked.
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