September 15, 2016 | No Comments
Donald Trump “believes that President Obama was born in the United States,” according to a statement by a senior campaign aide.
The statement, issued by senior communications adviser Jason Miller, came after the Republican nominee declined in an interview with the Washington Post to acknowledge that President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen.
“I’ll answer that question at the right time,” Trump told the newspaper. “I just don’t want to answer it yet.”
“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,” Miller said, adding that Trump “did a great service to the president and the country by bringing closure to the issue.”
Miller continued: “Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States.”
He also alleged that it was Hillary Clinton who “first raised this issue to smear then-candidate Barack Obama in her very nasty, failed 2008 campaign for president … As usual, however, Hillary Clinton was too weak to get an answer.” Independent fact checkers have found this claim to be false.
His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, recently said in a TV interview that that Trump “believes President Obama was born here,” and several top surrogates have urged him to say so publicly.
Trump himself has never repudiated his repeated insinuation that Obama was born in Kenya, rather than Hawaii as shown on the president’s birth certificate.
Before Miller’s statement was issued on Thursday, Clinton ripped Trump’s comments at a black-tie gala in Washington, D.C.
“He was asked one more time, ‘Where was President Obama born?’” she said. “And he still wouldn’t say Hawaii. He still wouldn’t say America. This man wants to be our next president? When will he stop this ugliness, this bigotry?”