"I come not to bury Caesar, not to praise him," Shakespeare's Marc Antony famously proclaimed. However, I come to praise Donald Trump, not to bury him. Steve M. acknowledges
I could be wrong, but I don't think Trump could bring himself to walk back birtherism, not even if Kellyanne and Ivanka and Jared got on their knees and begged him to. It's what made him as a political figure. And most of the voters in his base are birthers.
That is the nub of it. Trump never would have become a political figure were it not for doubting that President Obama was born in the USA. Hence, he pushed the idea, popular on the right, that Barack Obama was not a legitimate President. He should stand by it, even unto (political) death. To reverse himself now would- or at least should- strike neutral poltical observers as crass opportunism. He deserves credit for not walking back a claim which forms the very basis of his candidacy.
But as I type this, the Trump camp probably is formulating a statement on the subject, occasioned by the skewering of surrogate Rudy Giuliani by Hardball's Chris Matthews during the 7:00 p.m. Eastern hour on MSNBC. The New York mayor, under intense questioning by Matthews, both stated and restated that Trump now has said that Obama was born in the USA and insisted that Trump now believes the occcupant of the White House was born in the country.
Expect that the Trump campaign will go back and forth on this, much as it has on deportation of illegal immigrants. Steve M., noting that vice-presidential nominee Pence now has acknowledged that Obama was born in the USA, laments that the campaign is having it both ways. In fact, not only is that true of the campaign; it is true of Pence, who has said Obama was born in Hawaii, but not explicitly stating "this country." And make no mistake about it: to much of the far right, Hawaii- the most ethnically and culturally diverse in this country- is not Iowa, Kansas, Oklahoma, or Idaho. Or even Massachusetts.
But don't expect much questioning of Trump about his remarks in April, 2011 when
Possibly-serious Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is giving few details about the investigation he claims to have launched in Hawaii to get to the bottom of where President Obama was born, but the business mogul told CNN Thursday Americans will be "very surprised" by what he has found.
"We're looking into it very, very strongly. At a certain point in time I'll be revealing some interesting things," Trump said on CNN's American Morning.
Trump first claimed earlier this month he had sent investigators to Obama's home state in an effort to find out if the president was indeed born there, as he says he was and several media organization's independent investigations have confirmed.
"I have people that have been studying it and they cannot believe what they're finding," Trump told NBC then.
The President later released his long-form birth certificate, for which Trump took credit in his characteristically humble manner (below). However, we're still waiting for results of that investigation. Regrettably, the media isn't, and is unlikely to press Trump about it even now that former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, presumably speaking for the candidate, has brought the issue back into the limelight.
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