Donald Trump |
Mega-millionaire Donald Trump started sounding off about his doubts regarding Barack Obama's eligibility to be president months ago, and now the traditional media won't let it drop. Nor has "The Donald" changed his opinion that there remain significant questions to be answered.
The latest to raise the issue was CNN's Piers Morgan, who confronted Trump with the challenge, "Do you accept what he produced as valid?"
He was referring to the image of a Hawaiian "Certificate of Live Birth" that was released by the White House in April, a document that imaging experts have stated on the record they doubt is real.
Trump, who in April claimed credit for creating the circumstances that prompted Obama to release the "Certificate" image, was blunt.
"No, I don't necessarily accept it," he said.
"Do you believe he was probably born in America?" Morgan pressed.
"He might have been," Trump said.
"What does your gut tell you, because you are a smart guy," Morgan continued.
"My gut tells me couple things. No. 1, you know, it took a long time to produce this certificate, and when it came out, as you know, check out the Internet, many people say it is not real, you know, that it's a forgery," Trump said. "They go over it, and lots of different things and lots of different reasons."
He continued, "The other thing is, nobody has been able to see, you know, the day of his birth, they had twins born, they had another one born. Nobody has been able to find any records that he was born in that hospital."
Morgan asked about whether it was "political" for GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry to raise the issue.
"I think it's a good thing for him in the Republican primary. I don't know if its good in the general election," Trump said.
Just days earlier, Trump had been hit by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on the same issue:
"I don't know just how it miraculous appeared … all of a sudden after years and years it was produced out of nowhere," Trump said. "If in fact it's not 100 percent, he's not supposed to be president of the country."
He pointed out it was Van Susteren's first question to him.
"People have real questions about the validity," he said.
Back in April, only hours after Obama released the image from the White House, Trump claimed credit for causing Obama to take that action. He had been on a circuit of talk shows and programs raising the question, and hinting about his own plans to stage a campaign for the presidency.
He later said he would remain out of the actual political race.
The new discussions follow comments from Perry that suggested doubts about Obama's eligibility.
He later said he believes Obama is a citizen.
The image that was released, described by the White House as "proof positive" of Obama's Hawaiian birth:
Image released by the White House April 27, 2011 |
Among the significant unresolved issues is that two weeks before Obama finally released his "long-form birth certificate," Hawaii's former Health Department chief Chiyome Fukino – the one official who claimed to have examined Obama's original birth document – was interviewed by NBC News' national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, who reported that Fukino told him she had seen the original birth certificate and that it was "half typed and half handwritten."
However, the document released by the White House was entirely typed. Only the signatures and two dates at the very bottom were "handwritten." What Fukino described is apparently a different document from what Obama released to the public.