Trump press conference
Last Friday Trump held a rather curious press conference in Washington at his newest luxury hotel and he seemed to say that he was no longer a member of the birther movement. He boldly told the assembled press that “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period.”
Finally, he had taken a firm grasp of the obvious… or had he? Other than a widely debunked utterance to the effect that Hillary Clinton began the birther movement, he just made his statement and left the podium. Indeed, he quite smugly walked off (in one of the great unintentional metaphors in history, the podium soon after fell apart).
Not only did he not apologize to the president for spreading a false narrative about his birth, he did not say how he came to eschew the birther movement. Was it an epiphany such as “oh my God, that lovable old codger Joe Arpaio is wrong, the president was born in Hawaii after all” or did he arrive at his conversion by embracing common sense?
We’re thinking no on that last one.
Bizarre birthers
Trying to pin him down on whether he’d come to his senses or was faking it would be hard and for days the media were afforded no opportunity whatever. He’d gone 5 years leading the birther movement, even after the release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, which Trump implied was “not legitimate.” The issue had propelled his political career so further scrutiny was warranted.
Over the past two months Trump hasn’t held a real press conference where he is asked questions by the media, or sat with media on his plane, but he has appeared on TV. Mostly Fox News (where Sean Hannity tosses him questions a 2nd grader could answer) but on an ABC affiliate station in Columbus, Ohio this week a journalist was at last able to ask him a question on his birther about-face.
Ben Garbarek asked the Donald why “after all the years where you’ve expressed some doubt” about Obama’s country of birth, he seemed to change his opinion. Trump did not say it was common sense or an epiphany, but rather expediency.
“Well, I just wanted to get on with, I wanted to get on with the campaign,” the slippery billionaire said. “A lot of people were asking me questions. We want to talk about jobs. We want to talk about the military. We want to talk about ISIS and get rid of ISIS.”
The meaning is clear: he doesn’t mean it. He clearly thought saying Barack Obama was born in the U.S. (where he was born!) would put the matter aside so it would not harm his chances to win. He’s wrong about that and the question will be asked again, especially in light of this answer, which strongly implies he is still a birther.
After all, had he come to his senses and believed Obama was born in the U.S. (where he was born!) he’d have said so and likely detailed his reasons for coming around. Not simply admit that he wanted the issue (which he created) off of the table until the campaigning is done.
Birthers: Racist? Dumb?
Finally here’s this: no other U.S. president has had his birth status questioned like birthers questioned Obama’s. The first black president in the country’s history, the first time such a movement has come into existence. Racist? Is Paris a city?
Yet in all the years Trump and Arpaio, and others, have authored the movement they’ve come up with not one shred of evidence that President Obama was born anywhere but in the United States of America (where he was born!). A team of investigators Trump said he sent to Hawaii found nothing.
It is so moronic a movement that when Loretta Fuddy, the official with Hawaii’s Department of Health who released Obama’s long-form birth certificate, died in a plane crash in 2013, Trump and the birthers suggested the plane was sabotaged to achieve her death and keep her from revealing some secret we shall now never know.
The unfortunate Fuddy was one of nine on the plane and the only one who died. So birthers appear to be saying a nefarious group under the employ of the president paid the pilot to crash in such a way that only Fuddy, in her particular seat, would perish. Such a theory, people, is an example of the heights of dumbness that the birther movement can achieve.
So yeah, you bet Donald Trump is still a birther.
