Rudy Giuliani claimed in a contentious Thursday interview on MSNBC that Donald Trump “believes now” that President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
This assertion came after Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), and top advisor, Ben Carson, publicly stated this week that they think Obama was born in Hawaii, throwing cold water on Trump’s pet conspiracy.
“Do you confirm that? Do you agree with that?” “Hardball” host Chris Matthews asked Giuliani.
“I confirm that and Donald Trump now confirms that,” Giuliani replied.
Trump himself has yet to make this claim publicly.
Asked when Trump renounced his birther views, Giuliani first said “two years ago, three years ago” before claiming later in the interview “three, four, five years ago.”
Matthews said he was waiting for Trump, who just this week said “I don’t talk about it” when asked about Obama’s birthplace, to actually publicly disavow his birtherism.
“Does he believe he would succeed a legitimate president?” Matthews pushed.
“Donald Trump believes now that he was born in the United States,” Giuliani replied.
The top Trump surrogate then tried to make the case that Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign “first raised this issue.”
Trump has also accused Clinton of spreading birther rumors, though there is no evidence for this. Fact-checking site Politifact found that a pro-Clinton contingent of Democrats who refused to back Obama’s 2008 campaign once Clinton conceded the race to him did claim Obama was born in Kenya, but that the former of secretary of state has always pushed back against this idea.
“There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the charge that Obama was not born in the United States,” Politifact concluded, rating the claim “false.”
When Giuliani repeatedly pushed the point, he and Matthews argued back and forth for several minutes before Giuliani started laughing.
“There’s no record at all, Mr. Mayor, on the record right now, we checked this before you came on because one of producers, our senior producers thought you might say this, there is absolutely no record ever of Hillary Clinton or anyone in her campaign ever saying that President Obama is not legitimate,” Matthews said, telling Giuliani he didn’t think the conversation was “funny.”
Giuliani said the conversation was “ridiculous” and that they should instead be discussing Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Matthews then tried five times to end the interview as the former New York City mayor began insisting that Clinton should be prosecuted for her emails.
Watch the clip below via MSNBC.
As opposed to being a fact, it’s still a belief and can change based on who Trump speaks to.
And I now believe that Rudy Ghouliani is a closeted transvestite.
In other news: Titanic Sinks, 1,500 Die.
NounVerb911 is such a tedious, tiresome old fool.
Oh, how magnanimous of Trump to “believe” Obama was born in the US. Of course now Guliani is peddling his own loopy conspiracy theories…
Also, what happened to those “bombshell findings that we just won’t believe” that Trump’s “investigators” found in HI… Does he not “believe” them any more?