Donald Trump has attempted to dodge questions regarding his vocal support of the birther movement. This evasive move follows his campaign’s statement that he stopped making those claims in 2011. But BuzzFeed reports that Trump was still harping on President Obama’s citizenship as late as 2014.
Back in 2011, Trump was one of the most predominant voices of the birther movement and demanded that President Obama produce a long-form birth certificate. But lately, Trump has avoided answering questions regarding his stance that he didn’t believe President Obama was born in the U.S.
The Trump campaign would love to completely distance its candidate from the birther controversy. On Thursday, a statement from Trump campaign Senior Communications Manager Jason Miller said that Trump backs the fact Obama was born in the U.S. And in what has become the norm, the campaign blamed Hillary Clinton for this fiasco:
“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.”
But it looks like this has still not been put to bed, as BuzzFeed uncovered a May 2014 Trump interview with Ireland TV3’s Colette Fitzpatrick. At the time, Trump said he wasn’t sure Obama released his birth certificate:
“Well, I don’t know — did he do it? If I decide to run for office I’ll produce my tax returns. Absolutely … The president should come clean,” Trump added about Obama in the 2014 interview. “He should have come clean over the years. If you remember the very famous story where I offered him $5 million if he showed some basic records and he never took me up on it.”
When Fitzpatrick told Trump that Obama did release his birth certificate, Trump asserted that many people didn’t buy that it was a “proper” one. We now have a conspiracy theory wrapped in a conspiracy movement.
(Via BuzzFeed News)