Dems unappeased by Trump acknowledgement of Obama’s U.S. birth

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s terse acknowledgement on Friday that President Barack Obama was indeed born in the U.S. won the real estate mogul few points among Democrats.

“He owes an apology to President Barack Obama, he owes an apology to AfricanAmerican community and he owes an apology to the United States of America,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) said at a press conference organized by the Congressional Black Caucus.

The chairman of the caucus, North Carolina Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield, called Trump a “disgusting fraud” and blasted the New Yorker for spending years promoting the idea that the nation’s first black president was born outside the United States.

Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii, the son of a Kenyan man and a U.S. woman.

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again,” Trump said Friday at the conclusion of a campaign event in Washington.

While conceding the issue of Obama’s nationality, Trump took a swipe at Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy,” the Republican said. “I finished it. I finished it.”

The campaign factchecking Web site PolitiFact says that though some Clinton partisans raised doubts about Obama’s birthplace in 2008, neither the former first lady nor any of her aides ever encouraged such talk.

Clinton likewise declined to implement a consultant’s recommendation that she emphasize the fact of Obama’s Kenyan father and the childhood years he spent abroad to suggest he was less than fully imbued with U.S. culture and values.

Allegations that Obama was born in Kenya circulated for years among rightwingers and white supremacists before Trump latched on to the notion and used his money and celebrity to turn it into a national issue, which in turn laid the groundwork for his current presidential bid.

What became known as the birther movement peaked in 2011 before receding once Obama released his Hawaii birth certificate.

Trump, however, had continued since then to suggest that the president was engaging in deception.

The controversy flared again Thursday after The Washington Post published an interview in which Trump declined to state his position on the matter, telling the newspaper: “I’ll answer that question at the right time.”

Following publication of that exchange, the Trump campaign signaled that the candidate would make a statement about Obama’s birthplace on Friday.

Hours before Trump’s acknowledgment, a reporter raised the issue with Obama at the start of a White House conference on trade.

“Mr. President, Donald Trump is now finally acknowledging that, yes, you were born in America. Your reaction?,” a journalist asked.

“I, Jonathan, have no reaction. And I’m shocked that a question like that would come up at a time when we’ve got so many other things to do,” Obama replied. “We got other business to attend to. I was pretty confident about where I was born. I think most people were, as well. And my hope would be that the presidential election reflects more serious issues than that.”

Hillary Clinton also addressed the matter, in an appearance at the Black Women’s Agenda Workshop in Washington that took place ahead of the Trump event.

“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,” she said of her opponent.