In a previous post, I apologized “for accusing Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump and ‘[e]very purported Republican candidate for president’ in my March 31 (not April 1) article of being birthers’ ‘winkers,’ “demurers,’ ‘coy players,’ or ‘issue dodgers.’” I did so because an April 1 Salon article said that they were all “just kidding about all that stuff,” and “the entire thing was just a bit of fun.”
Well, this morning on the Today show, Donald Trump got very serious about the “birtherism” issue.
When the subject got to President Obama’s place of birth “controversy,” the potential presidential candidate—who is the #1 choice among Tea Party supporters—told interviewer Meredith Veira that he has “people who have been studying it, and they cannot believe what they are finding” and that he has researchers on the ground in Hawaii who also can not believe what they are finding.
As part of these unbelievable things his researchers are finding, I guess, is the “fact” that “[Obama’s grandmother in Kenya said he was born in Kenya, and she was there and witnessed the birth.” According to the New York Magazine, That is a birther myth that has been debunked.
Trump mentioned that he has some very smart people that have told him to get off the birther issue.
However, in Trump’s own words, “I happen to be smart.”
Whether he is smarter than those who have told him to drop the birther issue remains to be seen.
See and hear more on Trump’s birther comments on the Today show here.
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.