Trump Ends Birther Theory Obama

Skip navigation!

Update: Donald Trump himself admitted that President Obama was born in the United States, and falsely accused Hillary Clinton of starting the infamous "birther" conspiracy theory. “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said during an event at his new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. He added, “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.” During the 2008 Democratic race, one of the senior strategists at the Clinton campaign said in an internal memo that was later leaked, that President Obama's background was different from other Americans, The New York Times reported. Unlike Trump, however, Clinton and her campaign have never publicly questioned whether Obama was a U.S. citizen and whether he was born in the States.

AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT

This article was originally published on September 15, 2016.

Donald Trump's campaign renounced birtherism today in a statement from spokesperson Jason Miller. The campaign released the statement late Thursday, following Trump's appearance on The Tonight Show. The statement says that Donald Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States. It contains numerous falsehoods, beginning with the accusation that Hillary Clinton was the first to allege that Obama was not born in America. That's untrue. The statement also says that Trump has believed that Obama was born in America since 2011. That's also untrue. Notable is that the statement is not attributed to Trump, and Trump has never verbally admitted that Obama was born in the United States. That includes yesterday, when he declined to answer that question. Here's Trump, a year after Obama's long-form birth certificate was released.

Trump on Fox News promoting birtherism more than a year after the long-form certificate was released: pic.twitter.com/SZfrhvKN9z
— Media Matters (@mmfa) September 16, 2016

Here's the statement in full.

"Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States." pic.twitter.com/ialpmv3aYG
— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) September 16, 2016

Trump has said that he hired private detectives to investigate his allegation that President Obama was not born in Hawaii. Their findings, like Trump's tax returns and medical records, have yet to be released. The New York Times has an excellent and thorough look at Trump's birtherism here. Twitter users were quick to point out the flaws in the statement.

Donald Trump did not release a statement disavowing birtherism. His comms advisor did on his behalf. That's different.
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) September 16, 2016

Weird, this tweet is from months after Trump brought "this ugly incident to a conclusion." https://t.co/zwgawJJEWe
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) September 16, 2016

Trump never "obtained" Obama's birth certificate. After alleging he hired investigators who "couldn't believe what they were finding" 1
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 16, 2016

Trump renouncing birtherism is classic non-apology. Not sorry, going birther was a HUGE success, also Clinton is the REAL birther somehow.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) September 16, 2016

I would really like to see Trump pressed on this insane, racist conspiracy theory at the debates.
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) September 16, 2016