2016 Trump makes no apologies for his birther past Instead, he lied about his role in the conspiracy theory, and made unfounded accusations about Hillary Clinton’s involvement.

Donald Trump did not apologize Friday for driving one of the uglier, most blatantly racist narratives in American political culture during the Obama presidency. The most prominent proponent of the birther movement, and now the GOP presidential nominee, instead lied about his role in the conspiracy theory and, without any evidence, attempted to pin the blame on Hillary Clinton.

With the first general election debate 10 days away, Trump attempted to neutralize a likely Clinton attack line — that he spent five years questioning the American citizenship of the country’s first African-American president.


Trump’s concession to reality came only after he leveraged the spectacle of his walk-back into 30 minutes of live cable coverage that served as a branding opportunity for his new Trump Hotel in Washington — where the event was held — and for himself. With television networks carrying the event, which his campaign first indicated would be a press conference but later labeled an “event,” Trump waited while a number of decorated veterans sung his praises from the podium.

It was an effort by his campaign to bury the news of Trump disavowing the racist conspiracy theory that he spent most of Obama’s presidency indulging by celebrating the heroic service of others.

After 25 minutes of their testimonials, Trump, who avoided military service in Vietnam due to a foot problem, stepped forward to offer his statement.

“Hillary Clinton started the ‘birther’ controversy,” he said. “I finished it. Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making the United States great again.”

Multiple fact-checkers have found no connection between the birther movement and Clinton or the Clinton campaign. Trump's claim of having 'finished' the birther fight is a falsehood. For months after Obama released his long-form birth certificate, Trump continued to question the legitimacy of the document and never renounced his claims about Obama's citizenship.

As applause began from invited guests seated in the first eight rows of the hotel ballroom, members of the press began to shout questions.

Trump simply walked out of the room.

Trump’s campaign, riding a wave of cresting poll numbers, had planned to play the candidate’s statement to the max, possibly with a show of regret before an African-American audience. But the candidate essentially disclosed the ploy in an interview Wednesday, telling The Washington Post that he was waiting for “the right time” to address the subject.

When that story was published online Thursday night with a headline that read, “Trump bullish as poll numbers rise, won’t say if Obama born in United States,” his campaign swung into damage control mode, putting out a statement from spokesman Jason Miller late that evening asserting that Hillary Clinton started “birtherism” in 2008 and that Trump deserved credit for bringing it to an end: “Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States.”

But Trump, who himself has said that no one, not even his hired spokespeople, speaks for him, had yet to say that he no longer questions Obama’s citizenship.

Even Friday morning after Miller’s statement — which Donald Trump Jr. declared, “should be the end” of the birther controversy — had gone out, Trump refused to confirm it himself in an interview on Fox News. Pressed by Maria Bartiromo to say outright that he now accepts the legitimacy of the president’s birth in Hawaii, Trump demurred.

“I have to — we have to keep the suspense going, OK?” he said.

True to form, Trump did not apologize. Instead, there was only the broad claiming of credit for having forced that president to produce his long-form birth certificate, a painful episode that reminded the country that the historic election of 2008 had also awakened an ugly element of its history.

After the event, Trump led a small pool of still photographers and television crews on a tour of his hotel. But when the print pooler was excluded from the tour, the networks voted to pull their camera and erase the footage.