GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Campaigns In Laconia, New Hampshire

Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at Laconia Middle School Sept. 15, 2016 in Laconia, New Hampshire. His campaign that day released a statement claiming Trump now believes President Obama was born in the U.S. after years of alluding otherwise.

(Darren McCollester/Getty Images)

Five years after calling into question whether Barack Obama was actually born in Hawaii, Donald Trump now believes the president is a natural-born citizen of the U.S. At least that's what his campaign says.

Trump's senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, released a statement Thursday evening claiming not only that the GOP standard-bearer "now believes that President Obama was born in the United States," but that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, "first raised this issue to smear" him back in 2008.

(This has repeatedly been proven false.)

"In 2011, Mr. Trump was finally able to bring this incident to its conclusion by successfully compelling President Obama to release his birth certificate," the statement reads in part. "Mr. Trump did a great service to the President and country by bringing closure to the issue that Hillary Clinton first raised. Inarguably, Donald J. Trump is a closer."

The Trump campaign's claim that the candidate believes Obama was born in the U.S. comes weeks after the issue has followed its surrogates from interview to interview. His running mate, Mike Pence, told Politico last week that "I believe Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. I accept his birthplace."

Even then, Trump continued to allude to the fact that he may still believe otherwise. He told The Washington Post on Thursday that he'll "answer that question at the right time. I just don't want to answer it yet."

Although Trump didn't start the rumors that Obama is foreign-born, his revival of the notion in 2011 thrust the reality television star into national political conversations. For months, Trump demanded that Obama release his long-form birth certificate in order to quell hearsay, which culminated in the administration doing exactly that.

That particular news event is one of many reasons attributed to Trump's dismal polling among black voters. The GOP standard-bearer's campaign staff is claiming he's reversed course in a bid to court the demographic.

There's just one thing wrong with the campaign, rather than the candidate, making the statement. As Buzzfeed News pointed on Twitter, back in May Trump claimed that the only statements that matter are the ones he makes himself.

Don't believe the biased and phony media quoting people who work for my campaign. The only quote that matters is a quote from me! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2016

--Eder Campuzano

503.221.4344

@edercampuzano

ecampuzano@oregonian.com