Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tumbled on the Senate floor on Thursday after a desk she leaned on toppled under her weight.
Warren fell awkwardly backwards to sit on one of the Senate’s tiered platforms before being helped back to her feet. The fall appeared to cause quite a commotion, as over half a dozen senators rushed to help Warren after she fell.
GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was the first to reach Warren’s side. Warren appeared to give him a few pats of appreciation for his assistance. Warren appears to be unharmed.
🚨WATCH: Elizabeth Warren FELL DOWN on the Senate floor and knocked over a table. pic.twitter.com/1vF9hOlsLO
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 31, 2025
Video of the fall quickly went viral online as users poked fun at Warren’s ungraceful display.
“This puts the Tip in Tippecanoe. (I’ll see myself out),” conservative sports commentator Clay Travis posted, a veiled reference to Warren’s past claims of Native American heritage.
Dave Rubin, host of “The Rubin Report,” posted that “Warren’s Indian name was Falls On A**.”
“Looks like Senator Warren has been hitting the peace pipe,” another user posted.
Warren’s claims to Native American ancestry trace back decades and she has faced criticism for using a thin genetic connection to Native Americans to identify as a Native American on applications. For instance, in 1986, Warren identified as a Native American on her registration card for the State Bar of Texas.
Seeking to tamp down criticism of her heritage claims in 2018, Warren released a blood test that said she had a Native American ancestor between six and 10 generations back. That would make Warren anywhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024 Native American.
Warren’s use of the blood test to silence her critics earned her a rebuke from the Cherokee Nation, of which Warren claimed to be.
The Cherokee Nation’s then-secretary of state, Chuck Hoskin Jr., said that the use of “a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong … dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is [proven].”
Warren later apologized for claiming to be Native American. In a town hall in December 2019, she said she “shouldn’t have done it. I am not a person of color; I am not a citizen of a tribe; and I have apologized for confusion I’ve caused on tribal citizenship, tribal sovereignty, and for any harm that I’ve caused.”