WASHINGTON (AP) — After five years as the chief promoter of a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace, DonaldTrump abruptly reversed course Friday and acknowledged the fact that the president was born in America. He then immediately peddled another false conspiracy.
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump declared, enunciating each word in a brief statement at the end of a campaign appearance. “Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.”
But as the GOP presidential nominee sought to put that false conspiracy theory to rest, he stoked another, claiming the “birther movement” was begun by his Democratic 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.
While the question of Obama’s birthplace was raised by some backers of Clinton’s primary campaign against Obama eight years ago, Clinton has long denounced it as a “racist lie.”
“Trump has spent years peddling a racist conspiracy aimed at undermining the first African-American president,” Clinton tweeted after his Friday event. “He can’t just take it back.”
Indeed, it is clear Trump’s foes will try to keep the criticism of his actions alive. African-American members of Congress held a news conference near Washington’s convention center to denounce him immediately after his appearance.
Trump’s allegation on Clinton starting the controversy is the latest example of his tendency to repeat statements that are patently false. However, that did not affect his ability to beat more than a dozen challengers in the GOP primaries and has yet to dissuade his loyal supporters.
His statement Friday, in a sprawling ballroom at his new Washington hotel, lasted only a few seconds following a lengthy campaign event featuring military officers and award winners who have endorsed him. That turned the appearance into a de facto commercial for his campaign and property, 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?”
For years, Trump has been the most prominent proponent of the “birther” idea. He used the issue to build his political profile, earn media attention and define his status as an “outsider” willing to challenge conventions.
Friday marked the first time he said in no uncertain terms he was mistaken. But Trump did not explain how or when he’d come to that conclusion.
As late as Wednesday, he refused to acknowledge Obama was born in Hawaii, declining to address the matter in a Washington Post interview published late Thursday.
“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.
“This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?” she asked.
Hours later, Trump’s 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.
The facts do not match Miller’s description. Trump repeatedly continued to question Obama’s birth in the years after the president released his birth certificate. In August 2012, for example, Trump 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.
Even in January of this year, Trump sounded skeptical when asked whether he now believed the president was a natural-born citizen.
“Who knows? Who cares right now? We’re talking about something else, OK?” Trump said in a CNN interview. “I mean, I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I’ll write a book.”
Trump’s reversal comes as he works to win over African-American voters — many of whom have been turned off by his attempt to delegitimize the nation’s first black president.
Obama took the unprecedented step of releasing his long-form birth certificate in 2011, amid persistent questions from Trump and others.
On the day he released the document, 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.”
The president added Friday that he hoped the election would focus on more serious issues, and said he “was pretty confident about where I was born.”
After Trump’s event, the GOP nominee invited photographers and a camera on a tour of his new hotel property, without reporters present.
Meanwhile, the backdrop of blue curtains that Trump had spoken in front of collapsed, toppling a row of American flags like dominoes.
The press is angry and they will not be easily appeased. Let the bloodletting begin.
Trump is going to have to explain the basis on which he, all of a sudden, thinks Obama is American when he’s been arguing the opposite for years. He could say he’s a bully, a coward, and an opportunist - all true statements - but I suspect he won’t.
Trump is furious that someone forced him to admit the truth about Obama’s birth. I don’t recall him EVER admitting he’s wrong before, even in such a rude way. He snapped from the strain.
Kellyanne to blame for this one? If so, who replaces her in Trump’s man-cave cabinet?
In any case I look forward to HRC making him snap again and again in the first two debates. (Since Chris Wallace says he doesn’t do fact checking, I will give the third debate a pass. At this rate, so may Derpy Donnie
)
I read this new play on name ‘McDonald Trump’ and thought it fitting.
Its time to say on every level, fuck this piece of shit Trump and his supporters - enemies of America. Along with this headline,
this needs to be put down like a rabid dog and pronto.