.@realDonaldTrump: "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period." pic.twitter.com/Ek0Jmk9Cfz
— POLITICO (@politico) September 16, 2016
In a breakthrough moment filled with lies, Donald Trump finally decided that by this point, he may as well go ahead and admit Barack Obama was born in the USA just like a regular human being, as far as he knows. The comment came in the final seconds of a campaign event in which a whole bunch of military veterans, including Medal Of Honor recipients, said he'd be the bestest president ever. As CBS reporter Sopan Deb noted, Trump devoted 270 words to talking about the wonderful new hotel where the event took place, and a whopping 67 words to bringing to an end forever his embrace of birtherism (and that includes the 10 words in which he made it clear Hillary Clinton isn't worth mentioning in the same breath as Our Great Veterans):
And of course, there are at least two big stinking lies in there: the first, obviously, is that Hillary Clinton's campaign started birtherism in 2008, which has been soundly debunked. As Politifact notes, the closest thing to evidence for that claim is an email a Clinton supporter passed around claiming Obama was not born in the United States, but the Clinton campaign never questioned Obama's birthplace or his eligibility to be president. The first birthers appear to have been PUMAs ("Party Unity My Ass" for you young'uns), disaffected Hillary supporters who refused to join her in endorsing Obama -- a posting to a PUMA site definitely spread the rumor. But hey, the supporters who refused to join her in supporting Obama are all definitely part of her campaign, right? (For an alternate-reality take, of course, slimy Ben Shapiro presents his case that Hillary Clinton did too invent birtherism. Wear safety goggles and heavy gloves while reading.)
[wonkbar]<a href="http://wonkette.com/444326/donald-trump-youre-welcome-america"></a>[/wonkbar]Also a complete lie: the notion that Donald Trump put the matter to rest. Although he did claim credit for it at the time Obama released his birth certificate, he then went on to repeatedly vomit birtherism and enthusiastically lap it up again, as Democratic Underground reminds us:
And yes, as recently as January he was talking about how maybe he oughta write a book about his personal theory on Obama's birth:
Here is Trump pushing birtherism on CNN in January pic.twitter.com/RcRUvdsLfw
— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) September 16, 2016
Anyhow, it's all settled now, and we can move on to the really important questions, like how to start a war with Iran.
Also, if you're into irony, you might enjoy knowing that one of the vets who preceded Trump was himself a birther. Also, here's how Trump's big event came to an end:
[Mother Jones / Politifact / Daily Wire / TPM]
