Donald Trump made himself a political celebrity and laid the groundwork for his current presidential campaign back in 2011 when he was a prominent and loud birther. Is he still? He’s not saying no:
O’Reilly: "Do you think your birther position has hurt you among African-Americans?"
Trump: "I don’t know. I have no idea. I don’t even talk about it anymore, Bill. Because, you know, I just don’t bother talking about it.”
“I don’t talk about it anymore” is not exactly “President Obama released his birth certificate and I saw that I was wrong.” Trump went on to claim that O’Reilly was “the first one that’s brought that up in a while.” He didn’t say that, here, “a while” meant “a day”—the conversation with O’Reilly was Tuesday and:
“I don’t talk about it because if I talk about that, your whole thing will be about that,” Trump told reporters aboard his plane on Labor Day. “So I don’t talk about it.”
As for whether his birther position has hurt him among African Americans, Trump said “I don’t know. I guess with maybe some. I really don’t know why.” (Psst: Because you couldn’t accept that a black president could be legitimate or even American. That’s why.) But Trump quickly recovered himself from that searing moment of uncertainty and went on to brag about how well his big visit to a black church in Detroit went: “It was like a love fest.”
Sure it was, Donny.