After Barack Obama was elected president, Donald Trump promoted the absurd conspiracy theory that he wasn't born in the United States. Of course, as stated on Obama's short-form birth certificate, he was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. However, 'birthers' believe that certificate is a forgery, and he was really born in Kenya, although there is not a shred of evidence to support those claims.
In April 2011, Donald Trump appeared on The Today Show, and said there's a "real possibility" the first black president wasn't born in the United States. "I have people that have been studying [Obama's birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they're finding," said Trump. He never revealed those unbelievable findings. Later that month, President Obama took the unusual step of releasing his long-form birth certificate to the public. This document was verified as authentic, and should have put an end to the rumors.
However, despite the facts, the birthers claimed "forgery," and Trump continued to question Obama's citizenship. In August 2012, he tweeted, "An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud." In August 2013, he told ABC News, "Some people say that was not his birth certificate. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows." After falsely claiming that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement, Trump finally admitted that Obama was born in the US in September 2016.
In her new memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama has some harsh words for Donald Trump. According to NBC News, she says she "buzzed with anger" when she heard the Access Hollywood tape, where Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. She writes about the 2016 election, expressing disbelief that so many women voted for a "misogynist" over Hillary Clinton, "an exceptionally qualified female candidate." And she savagely slams Trump for his birtherism, writing that she'll "never forgive" him for putting her family in danger.
According to The Washington post, the former first lady writes, "The whole [birther] thing was crazy and mean-spirited, of course, its underlying bigotry and xenophobia hardly concealed. But it was also dangerous, deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this I’d never forgive him."
On Friday, President Trump responded to Michelle's criticism on the White House lawn. "I guess she wrote a book. She got paid a lot of money to write a book. And they always insist you come up with controversial," said Trump, as reported by Deadline. "Well, I’ll give you a little controversy back: I’ll never forgive [Barack Obama] for what he did to our United States military. By not funding properly, it was depleted. Everything was old and tired. And I came in and I had to fix it. So I’ll never forgive him for what he did to our military. I’ll never forgive him for what he did in many other ways—which I’ll talk to you about in the future."
Has anyone seen Donald Trump's birth certificate? Or his tax returns? Just asking...
