In a head-scratching interview Thursday, New Mexico’s Republican nominee to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District suggested her Native American opponent isn’t Native American ― because she didn’t grow up on a reservation.

Former state Rep. Janice Arnold-Jones took the swipe at Democratic opponent Deb Haaland during an interview on Fox News, reacting to the observation that, if elected, Haaland would be the first Native American woman in Congress.

“Your opponent, she would be the first Native American, as a woman, in Congress,” Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt noted, to which Arnold-Jones replied, “That’s what they say, yes.”

Earhardt, puzzled, asked Arnold-Jones to elaborate: “‘That’s what they say?’ What do you mean by that?”

“Well, there’s no doubt that her lineage is Laguna,” Arnold-Jones said, “but she’s a military brat, just like I am, and so [long pause], you know, it evokes images that she was raised on a reservation. She belongs to a pueblo.”

white congressional candidate believes her native american opponent’s ancestry “evokes images that she was raised on a reservation,” and she’s here to correct the record pic.twitter.com/CMwgh1VT6C

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) September 6, 2018