Families of Navajo war veterans say they're dumbfounded that President Donald Trump took a political jab at a U.S. senator at an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers.
Trump praised the Code Talkers at the White House on Monday. He also turned to a nickname he's often deployed for Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts: Pocahontas.
Relatives of the Code Talkers say the comment was inappropriate and distracted from the men's work that helped the U.S. win World War II.
Pocahontas is a well-known historical figure who bridged her own Pamunkey Tribe in present-day Virginia with the British in the 1600s.
The largest organization representing American Indians says Trump wrongly turned the name into a derogatory term.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the president didn't intend it as a racial slur.
