Clinton: Trump owes America an apology for questioning Obama’s birth certificate

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hillary Clinton said Friday that Donald Trump owes the president and America an apology for questioning for years whether he was born in the United States.

“Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple, and Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology,” the Democratic nominee said at the Black Women’s Agenda symposium in Washington, D.C.

“For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”

Clinton further said his “birther” questions fed “into the worst impulses of bigotry and bias that lurk in our country.”

She said the issue raised serious questions about Trump’s judgment. “Imagine a person in the Oval Office who traffics in conspiracy theories and refuses to let them go no matter what the facts are,” she said. “Imagine a president who sees someone who doesn’t look like him and doesn’t agree with him and thinks that person must not be a real American.”

Hillary Clinton speaks at the Black Women's Agenda Annual Symposium in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Hillary Clinton speaks at the Black Women’s Agenda Annual Symposium in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Clinton gave the speech in Washington just moments before Trump is set to give what he billed as a “major statement” on the birth-certificate issue. Trump will also be speaking in Washington

Trump had for years championed the conspiracy theory that Obama’s birth certificate was fraudulent, and the celebrity real estate mogul has dodged questions about it on the campaign trail.

But on Thursday night, his campaign issued a statement saying Trump now believes Obama was born in the U.S. That statement was released after the Washington Post published a new interview with Trump in which the GOP nominee again refused to concede the birthplace issue.

He continued to dodge questions about the issue on Friday, but did affirm his previously issued statement while contending that Clinton had a role in the controversy — something that’s never been proved.

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said before exiting the stage at a Washington event the campaign had hailed as a major event.

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said. “I finished it, you know what I mean.”

When pressed at a White House event, President Obama reluctantly weighed in on the topic.

“I am shocked that a question like that has come up at a time when we have so many other things to do,” Obama said with evident annoyance in the Oval Office, before adding, “I’m not that shocked, actually; it’s fairly typical.”

  • This story has been updated since publishing to reflect comments from Donald Trump and President Obama. Olivier Knox contributed to this story.