Trump Campaign Claims Trump Isn’t a Birther While Trump Refuses to Give a Straight Answer

By Josh FeldmanSep 15th, 2016, 10:43 pm
 

donald-trumpDonald Trump‘s campaign put out a statement tonight after Trump yet again dodged on his past birtherism. Trump said he doesn’t want to talk about it and hinted that he might “at the right time.”

The campaign invokes the claim that Hillary Clinton‘s campaign spread this around in 2008 (there were nasty rumors circulating during the campaign, but Clinton’s campaign did not come out and say he wasn’t born here), and they are insisting that Trump is no longer a birther.

However, they argue he deserves credit for “compelling” President Obama to settle the issue.

Here is the statement in full:

Hillary Clinton’s campaign first raised this issue to smear then-candidate Barack Obama in her very nasty, failed 2008 campaign for President. This type of vicious and conniving behavior is straight from the Clinton Playbook. As usual, however, Hillary Clinton was too weak to get an answer. Even the MSNBC show Morning Joe admits that it was Clinton’s henchmen who first raised this issue, not Donald J. 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. 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. 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.

Mr. Trump is now totally focused on bringing jobs back to America, defeating radical Islamic terrorism, taking care of our veterans, introducing school choice opportunities and rebuilding and making our inner cities safe again.

So wait, Trump’s campaign is now contending that this all was settled in 2011? Then why has Trump talked about it in the years afterwards.

2012:

2013:

2014:

From last year:

Trump also resurrected claims that the president is foreign-born, saying “fine, if you believe that” when asked about the president’s released, long-form birth certificate, before diverting back to talking points.

Also, wait, “having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate”… when the hell did that happen?

And Trump himself seems to think he deserves credit too for having to force President Obama to prove to the American public that he was not foreign-born:

And by the way, Trump keeps saying if he answers the question now it’s all people would talk about.

Well, um, not if his answer is “He was born in this country”…

[featured image via Shutterstock]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac