Two thirds of the way through Monday’s first televised presidential debate, moderator Lester Holt asked Donald Trump the question everyone knew was coming. Of course, we’re talking about the Republican nominee’s continued insistence on President Barack Obama’s not having been born in the United States — otherwise known as the “birther movement,” or “Birtherism.” So when Holt gave Trump two minutes to address his five-year support of the non-issue and asked “why it took [him] so long” to back off, Trump did what everyone thought he’d do — he blamed Hillary Clinton.
“Sidney Blumenthal works for the campaign,” said Trump. “Blumenthal sent McClatchy — a highly respected reporter at McClathy — to Kenya to find about it. They were pressing it very hard. She failed to get the birth certificate. When I got involved, I didn’t fail. I got him to give the birth certificate, so I’m satisfied with it.”
For those unfamiliar with the story, former McClatchy Washington bureau chief James Asher claimed Blumenthal came to him during the 2008 Democratic primary with a suggestion. Mainly, that he and his outlet should investigate then Senator Obama‘s claims regarding his place of birth, and determine whether or not the White House hopeful had actually been born in Kenya. As Politifact notes, this account was proven false long ago — primarily due to Asher’s admittedly no remembering what he and Blumenthal discussed, exactly. (Kenya came up, but not Obama’s “place of birth.”)
Trump’s satisfaction notwithstanding, the Republican nominee’s non-answer didn’t get any better after mentioning Blumenthal. Instead, it dovetailed into an unrelated discussion about how the New York real estate mogul wanted to “get on to defeating ISIS,” “creating jobs,” “having a strong border” and other “things that are very important to me” and “the country.”
Structurally, Trump here was trying to suggest the continued Birtherism questions were distracting from the so-called “real issues. Yet as Holt reminded him, he never really answered the question, “What changed your mind?” For despite Obama’s releasing his birth certificate in 2011, Trump kept pushing the issues in the years that followed — even, technically, until he supposedly settled the issue with his Rick-roll in early September.
The candidate’s concluding words on the matter still didn’t help. What did help, however, were Clinton’s opening remarks in response: “Just listen to what you heard. Clearly, as Donald just admitted, he knew he was going to stand on this debate stage and Lester Holt was going to be asking us questions. So he tried to put the whole racist birther lie to bed. But it can’t be dismissed that easily.”
