Trump Tells the Truth About Obama’s Birth to Lie About Hillary
Donald Trump finally ended years of lies about President Obama’s birthplace on Friday, but not before getting one more fib in about Hillary Clinton.
Olivia Nuzzi
09.16.16 12:34 PM ET
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For as long as Obama has been in public office, his detractors have attempted to paint him as somehow alien.
In 2004, Andy Martin, a failed congressional candidate who vowed to “exterminate Jew power in America,” pushed out rumors that Obama was a secret Muslim, which evolved into yet more misinformation, spread with ease through the slippery channels of chain email and message boards.
By 2008, fringe Clinton supporters were passing around claims that Obama’s mother was unable to fly in the late months of her pregnancy, and so she delivered him in Kenya. Phillip Berg, a 9/11 truther and Clinton supporter who once served as deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania, filed a complaint in federal District court in August 2008 that said, “Obama carries multiple citizenships and is ineligible to run for President of the United States. United States Constitution, Article II, Section 1.”
Clinton did not push the rumors. And although, throughout the general election, right-wing extremists perpetuated the idea, neither did John McCain.
For the ensuing handful of years, birtherism was mostly confined to loony toons like Orly Taitz. But then, in the spring of 2011, Trump started to talk about it.
He appeared on The View, and said, “Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?”
He claimed he had sent private investigators to Hawaii to look for the real story. “I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” he said.
When Obama released the certificate, Trump declared victory in a New Hampshire press conference—but he never said he was convinced.
In fact, he spent the next five years casting doubts.
In August of 2010, he Tweeted, “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.” In 2016, he said he planned to write a book on the topic. “I’ll do it very successfully,” he told CNN.
Trump’s announcement comes as the polls are narrowing, his campaign strategists’ advice to act more diplomatically having proved effective. But a few words on the subject can’t erase years of just asking questions to the delight of racists throughout the country.
After Trump exited the ballroom, the blue curtain collapsed onto the stage, taking down the American flags with it.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/16/trump-tells-the-truth-about-obama-s-birth-to-lie-about-hillary.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon
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