Washington – After five years as the chief promoter of the false idea that President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, Donald Trump admitted on Friday that the president was — and claimed credit for putting the issue to rest.
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“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said in brief televised remarks. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
But as Trump sought to put that false conspiracy theory to rest, he stoked another, claiming that the “birther movement” was started by rival Hillary Clinton. There is no evidence that is true.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said. “I finished it, you know what I mean.”
Trump spoke against a backdrop of veterans in a sprawling ballroom at his new Washington hotel. His statement of a few seconds came only after a lengthy campaign event featuring military officers and award winners who have endorsed him. Trump did not address the issue until the end of the event, turning it into a de facto commercial for the GOP candidate, as the major cable TV networks aired the full event live in anticipation of comments Trump had hyped hours before.
“I’m going to be making a major statement on this whole thing and what Hillary did,” he told the Fox Business Network. “We have to keep the suspense going, OK?”
Clinton herself said Friday that Trump owes Obama and the American people an apology for his role as a leading “birther” questioning the president’s citizenship.
Speaking at an event with black women, Clinton said that Trump’s campaign was “founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”
She said Trump is “feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias that lurks in our country.”
The birther idea, which he now denies, provided Trump with his entry into Republican politics and for years has defined his status as an “outsider” who is willing to challenge convention.
As late as Wednesday, he would not acknowledge that Obama was born in Hawaii, declining to address the matter in a Washington Post interview published late Thursday night.
“I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump said. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.”
Clinton seized on Trump’s refusal during a speech Thursday night before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.
“He was asked one more time where was President Obama born and he still wouldn’t say Hawaii. He still wouldn’t say America,” Clinton said. “This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?”
Hours later, campaign spokesman Jason Miller issued a statement that suggested the question had been settled five years ago — by Trump.
“In 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this ugly incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate,” Miller said.
“Mr. Trump did a great service to the president and the country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton and her team first raised,” he added. “Inarguably, Donald J. Trump is a closer. Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States.”
The facts of Trump’s actions do not match Miller’s description. Trump repeatedly questioned Obama’s birth in the years after Obama released his birth certificate. In August 2012, for example, he was pushing the issue on Twitter.
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud,” he wrote.
Trump’s comments speculating on Obama’s birthplace have been seen by many as an attempt to delegitimize the nation’s first black president, and have turned off many of the African-American voters he is now courting in his bid for the White House.
On Friday, Obama jabbed at Trump, saying “We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers.”
“I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were as well,” Obama said during a meeting about his trade agenda.
Miller’s claim that Clinton launched the birther movement during her unsuccessful primary run against Obama in 2008 is unsubstantiated and long denied by Clinton. The theory was pushed by some bloggers who backed Clinton’s primary campaign eight years ago, but Clinton has said Trump “promoted the racist lie” that sought to “delegitimize America’s first black president.”
Looks like the shrieky silly lefties will have to find another irrelevant excuse for vilifying Trump.
They are so afraid he will win (which he will), that their desperation knows no bounds.
at this time “what difference does it make” – he should have used Hillary’s quote to remind every voter of BENGHAZI FOUR MURDERS.
So that tells something of his judgement until now.
Do we really want a president who believes in such fantasies?
He just can’t let his head free of conspiracy theories. Repeat a lie, until you believe if yourself.
– There is no evidence that Hillary’s 2008 compain began spreading such rumors
– There was always (even before it’s release) ample evidence that Obama was born in the US
– You don’t need to be born in the US to be it’s president (ask Ted Cruz), and these crazies (driven by Trump) never even bothered discussing it
– There is no evidence that Ted Cruz’s father was a friend or even ever came in contact with Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy’s killer), even though Trump claims so
and believe it or not, the Republican party says “He is our man” and is willing to vote for him. This is telling something on the state of mind of the people comprising the republican party.
The problem with this statement is that Hillary can make yet another ad showing he’s a liar. Trump now claims credit for bringing closure to the issue as Obama produced his birth certificate. However, Trump kept the “birther” lie going long after by publicly supporting state challenges to the validity of the birth certificate.
The fact remains that Trump called a massive press conference where he told the world he had IRREFUTABLE evidence that Obama was born in Kenya and we would all be amazed at what his really fantastic people found…. and then never produced a single shred of evidence. This was a HUGE lie.
He also claims that Hillary started the birther conversation, which has been debunked by every fact-checker in America.
I do believe Hillary brought it up now as it forces the subject back into the news cycle and puts Trump back on defense… on a genuinely indefensible subject.
He lied… lied again and then called a press conference to double-down on the lie. If Trump had any class he’d take a page from Gary Johnson’s playbook and say “I apologize. I was wrong about that”. But he can’t do that. That’s why Johnson has my vote.
Saying one stupid thing after another, that the Hillary campaign 8 years ago started the “birther” baloney will only stoke anger against racist Trumpf and grow the November turnout against him. Thanks for reminding us how dumb you are Donnie. Good move…
Wonderful. Can we move on, now?
Trump just cannot open his mouth without lying. He lied for years about Obama’s birth and is now lying that Hillary started it. No, she didn’t. And his manager, the editor of Breitbart, has repeated the lie on their website, where they claim the Washington Post article proves that Hillary started it. Well, I challenge those of you who believe everything Trump and Breitbart say to read the actual WaPo article, entitled, “Donald Trump’s Ridiculous Claim that Hillary Clinton Started the Birther Movement”. Are you really going to accept Breitbart’s lies about the article instead of reading the actual article? Instead of learning from reading the actual Torah, do you recommend reading the Wikipedia summary? How gullible are Trump supporters?
I don’t get the whole issue. Obama’s mother was a US citizen, so even if he was born in Nairobi, he would be a US citizen!
the fact is trump played the media for fools that they are. instead of concentrating on real issues they are busy with nonsense . the liberal media along with hillary are in panic mode and the only card they play is racist racist racist . she has no record to run on except obama failures.
Obama started the rumors by falsely claiming in a 1991 promotional booklet he was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.” He most likely claimed the same in order to qualify as a foreign transfer student, as Columbia accepted very few domestic transfers. Of course his mother was indisputably an American citizen, so it doesn’t make any difference where she gave birth.
Reply to #9 : The US Constitution requires that the US President must be a “natural born citizen”. Being merely a citizen is not sufficient.
Think of any negative adjective to describe a person and I think trump fits each one.
I’m always amazed when I repeatedly hear Hillary supporters unbelievably accusing trump of lying! With the huge amount of her lies that have been exposed, on top of her corruption, I’ve come to the only conclusion possible: Hillary supporters are either too stupid or too hypocritical to face or admit the truth about who is the real liar. Wow.
These people are so disingenuous, just like you get accused of racism if you suggest that all obama’s pro-muslim actions and policies, topped by the fact he admits his father and brother are Muslim, and Obama was photographed in full Muslim garb at his brother’s wedding, strongly point to him Being muslim, or at the very least a muslim sympathizer, makes you a conspiracist. It’s all true.