Plan B Forum

Trump finally admits it: 'President Barack Obama was born in the United States'

By Stephen Collinson and Jeremy Diamond, CNN

Updated 3:37 PM ET, Fri September 16, 2016

Washington (CNN) -- Donald Trump finally admitted Friday that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States," reversing himself on the issue that propelled him into national politics five years ago.

Trump sought to end his longstanding attempt to discredit the nation's first African-American president with just a few sentences tacked on at the end as he unveiled his new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.

But the issue isn't likely to die down any time soon -- especially as Trump continues to falsely blame Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for starting the "birtherism" controversy. Clinton said earlier Friday that Trump's acknowledgment of Obama's birthplace doesn't go far enough and that he must also apologize.

"For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president," Clinton said at an event in Washington. "His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie."

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.

Trump offered no apologies for his leading role in the birther movement and didn't explain what drove him to change his mind.

***

The birtherism controversy exploded the previous night when Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post that he still wasn't prepared to acknowledge Obama's birthplace. Within a few hours, the campaign released a statement -- attributed to his spokesman -- that said Trump now believes Obama was born in the United States.

Trump finally said the words out loud Friday morning.

"President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period," Trump said, ignoring reporters' questions despite earlier indications he would hold a press conference. "Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again."

***

Trump has declined other opportunities during the past two weeks to refute his original birtherism.

When local Philadelphia TV station WPVI asked Trump on September 2 about his past statements, Trump replied: "I don't talk about it anymore. I told you, I don't talk about it anymore."

He repeated the same line when asked about it during a gaggle with reporters aboard his plane last week.

And in an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly last week, Trump again said, "I don't bother talking about it."

5 years ago
Trump sends investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama

CNN Political Producer Alexander Mooney

Washington (CNN) – Self-proclaimed birther Donald Trump is now so doubtful of President Obama's birthplace that he's sent a team of his own investigators to Hawaii in hopes of getting to the bottom of the issue.

That's according to Trump himself, who, in an interview with NBC, warned his investigators just might uncover "one of the greatest cons in the history of politics and beyond."

"I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump said an interview that aired Thursday Morning.

Asked if he has assigned people specifically to search in Hawaii, Trump said, "Absolutely."

The business mogul, who in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll is tied for second place among potential presidential candidates, also suggested the president is involved in an ongoing cover-up over the matter.

"He spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren't an issue, why wouldn't he just solve it?" he said. "I wish he would because if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts."

I honestly don't know how anyone can ever believe a single thing that spews forth out of Mango Mussolini's noise-hole. There is something seriously wrong with Trump that goes far beyond simply being a jackass. And the fact that half of America appears to not mind so much at all is just depressing as fuck.

the fact that half of America appears to not mind so much at all

Lord Jim wrote:Speaking as a life-long Reaganite Republican, I don't see a single word to argue with in that...

Sue U wrote:
I honestly don't know how anyone can ever believe a single thing that spews forth out of Mango Mussolini's noise-hole. There is something seriously wrong with Trump that goes far beyond simply being a jackass. And the fact that half of America appears to not mind so much at all is just depressing as fuck.

Well, I will argue with that since Trump has never come close to 50% in any poll,

Lord Jim wrote: with all her hideous faults...will ultimately prevail...

Gob wrote: "Amusing as fuck" out here in the other world.

Long Run wrote:

Lord Jim wrote: with all her hideous faults...will ultimately prevail...

If her greatest hits start selling (unlike her loser book that came out this week), then she could manage to lose the election. (See, e.g., Peg Noonan's article today revisiting of the Travel Office heinousness where HRC fired six regular life-time government workers so she could provide contracts to political cronies, and then stalled, lied repeatedly about it, attacked the poor workers including alleging bogus criminal allegations, and then declared it old news when the truth came out).

dales wrote:AUH20

Donald Trump promised a major statement about his embrace of conspiracy theories about President Obama’s birthplace.

Instead, he fooled the three major cable news networks into airing a 20-minute infomercial about his hotel and his candidacy. With the “breaking news” chyron on, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN played footage of veterans praising Trump and Trump praising his own hotel.

And then Trump showed up on stage for less than two minutes to say that Obama was born in the United States.

This is what people mean when they complain about how “the media” has covered the Trump campaign.

The fact that some Medal of Honor winners like Trump is not breaking news. News networks have no obligation to broadcast every minute of a candidate’s event just because he promised that eventually he’d say something they were interested in hearing.

If the Trump campaign were paying to air that praise for their candidate, the cost would have been exorbitant.

If Hillary Clinton is late to an event, cable networks don’t uncritically air 30 minutes of her supporters talking about how great she is; they cut away, and they return to airing the event when there’s something happening that’s actually of national interest. CNN eventually cut away, but not until after airing more than 20 minutes of Trump supporters praising their candidate. MSNBC cut away after nearly 25 minutes.

At this point, the bait and switch can’t possibly be a surprise. During the primaries, Donald Trump turned a victory speech at Mar-a-Lago into an infomercial for Trump brands. The networks didn’t cut away then, and they haven’t learned their lesson now.

Donald Trump on Friday morning dangled an enticing offer — he would be making a "big statement" in just a few hours about the Barack Obama birther conspiracy that helped launch his political career.

The media took the bait. The cable networks offered wall-to-wall coverage of Trump's plane taxiing at Reagan National Airport (cozying near Hillary Clinton's own "Stronger Together" jet). With Trump running late for the 10 a.m. news conference, the image of an empty podium was flashed for more than an hour. And when Trump finally did appear, he got more than 20 minutes of free airtime promoting his new Washington hotel and showcasing endorsements from Medal of Honor recipients.

Only after that extended infomercial did Trump deliver the goods — a speedy statement that Obama was indeed born in the United States, coupled with a blatantly false accusation that Hillary Clinton started the conspiracy to begin with.

The media got punked.

“It's hard to imagine this as anything other than a political Rick-roll,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper vented on air after Trump’s hotel event. His colleague John King followed up with, “We just got played.”

Trump has long had a dysfunctional relationship with the media, with the Republican nominee blacklisting reporters, calling them names, and even mocking one journalist’s physical disability, all while racking up free airtime round-the-clock.

But the past 24 hours showed Trump's ability to still play the media — in the words of former rival Jeb Bush — "like a fine Stradivarius violin.”

The media did try to band together in a mild protest this time. After the campaign tried to only allow photographers and camera people with Trump as he toured the new hotel, denying access to a producer or reporter who might ask him a question, reporters balked.

One member of Trump’s traveling press corps said the indignities of the day — combined with Trump having left reporters behind the prior night, only to publicly mock them for being late — “lit a fire” under the media.

In a show of defiance, the major networks collectively voted to pull a camera and erase video of Trump giving a tour of his hotel. But that only came after the lengthy free coverage Trump racked up earlier on Friday.

"Nice hotel. Under budget and ahead of schedule. Isn't that nice? Now, it is a great honor. This is a brand new ballroom. Only see a small piece of it because we have it broken down, but this is it. The hotel is completed,” Trump said before delivering his promised birther announcement.

Trump then moved on to speaking about the array of military officials and heroes behind him, representing 120 officer endorsements and 17 Medal of Honor endorsements. After speaking for a few minutes, Trump introduced Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton, who made a statement about why he is supporting Trump. Thornton was followed by at least seven other military officers who also offered glowing words for Trump.

After about twenty minutes the cable networks recognized Trump wasn’t coming on any time soon, and they cut out, and offered some clearly irritated commentary about Trump’s bait-and-switch.

"To be clear, we have been told this event would be an event where Donald Trump would address his past trafficking in the birther issue, the notion that President Obama was not born in the United States,” CNN anchor John Berman added. "He opened the event making a plug for his hotel, he has a new hotel so in a sense, you could say he was leveraging five years of birther conspiracy to promote his hotel. Now we have been listening to veterans and military officials praising Donald Trump. He has lined up quite a bit of support onstage."

“As soon as Donald Trump is speaking germane to the new conversation right now, which is focused on the comments that even he himself said he would hope to address soon, the topic of bitherism,” MSNBC’s Peter Alexander said as he anchored the coverage.

It was a cunning move on Trump’s part — entice the media with a topic that was dominating the news cycle, package it with a promotion for his brand new hotel, and then add in bona fide military heroes and Medal of Honor recipients, for whom cutting away from quickly could be viewed as disrespectful.

Long Run wrote:

Lord Jim wrote: with all her hideous faults...will ultimately prevail...

If her greatest hits start selling (unlike her loser book that came out this week), then she could manage to lose the election. (See, e.g., Peg Noonan's article today revisiting of the Travel Office heinousness where HRC fired six regular life-time government workers so she could provide contracts to political cronies, and then stalled, lied repeatedly about it, attacked the poor workers including alleging bogus criminal allegations, and then declared it old news when the truth came out).

According to the White House, the incoming Clinton administration had heard reports of irregularities in the Travel Office and possible kickbacks to an office employee from a charter air company.[9][10] They looked at a review by KPMG Peat Marwick which discovered that Dale kept an off-book ledger, had $18,000 of unaccounted-for checks, and kept chaotic office records.[9][10] White House Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and the White House counsels thus decided to fire the Travel Office staff and reorganize it.[11] The actual terminations were done on May 19, 1993, by White House director of administration David Watkins.[5] There was also a feeling among the White House and its supporters that the Travel Office had never been investigated by the media due to its close relationship with press corps members[8][12] and the plush accommodations it afforded them and favors it did for them.[13][14] (Congress would later discover that in October 1988, a whistleblower within the Travel Office had alleged financial improprieties; the Reagan White House counsel looked into the claim but took no action.[12][15])

Republicans and other critics saw the events differently. They alleged that friends of President Bill Clinton, including his third cousin[5] Catherine Cornelius, had sought the firings in order to get the business for themselves.[7] Dale and his staff had been replaced with Little Rock, Arkansas-based World Wide Travel, a company with a substantial reputation in the industry[8] but with several ties to the Clintons.[5] In addition, Hollywood producer and Inauguration chairman Harry Thomason, a friend of both Clintons, and his business partner, Darnell Martens, were looking to get their air charter company, TRM, the White House business in place of Airline of the Americas.[5][13] The Clinton campaign had been TRM's sole client during 1992, collecting commissions from booking charter flights for the campaign.[16] Martens wanted the White House to award TRM a $500,000 contract for an aircraft audit,[16] while also seeking Travel Office charter business as an intermediary which did not own any planes.[17]

Attention initially focused on the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), since on May 12, 1993, a week before the firings, associate White House counsel William Kennedy had requested that the FBI look into possible improprieties in the Travel Office operation.[10] FBI agents went there and, although initially reluctant,[5] authorized a preliminary investigation.[10] Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster became worried about the firings about to take place and ordered the KPMG Peat Marwick review, asking the FBI to hold off in the meantime.[5] The accounting review started on May 14 and the report was given to the White House on May 17.[18] KPMG was unable to do an actual audit, because there were so few records in the Travel Office that could be audited and because the office did not use the double-entry bookkeeping system that audits are based upon.[9][19] One KPMG representative later described the office as "an ungodly mess in terms of records" with ten years of material piled up in a closet.[19] When the review came back with its reports of irregularities, Watkins went ahead with the terminations on May 19.[5]