Donald Trump’s campaign manager affirmed in an interview Friday morning that the GOP nominee believes President Obama was born in the United States.
GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway’s remarks come after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said this week Trump believes the president was born in America.
However, Trump, who has suggested in the past that the president’s birth certificate is forged and that the commander in chief was really born in Kenya, has not come out and said this himself.
“Why doesn’t he say it himself? Why not?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Conway Friday morning.
“You have to ask him,” Trump’s campaign manager responded, adding “I find the entire topic really amazing.”
Cuomo interjected, “Why would you want to jeopardize that lead by going at the exact issue that you used against [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton], which is transparency and honesty. You say, ‘Ask him.’ You are his campaign manager. That’s why I’m asking you. You speak for him. Why won’t [Trump] come out and just own that position? That, ‘Yes, President Obama was born here. I was wrong to go with the ‘birthers.’ ”
“So he believes President Obama was born here,” Conway maintained. “He was born in Hawaii. But the point is, what kind of president has he been? So he is born in the United States, there’s no question to me he was born in the United States, but he has not been a particularly successful president, and that’s what this campaign is about.”
Trump used to be intensely interested in Obama’s birthplace, and spoke at length about theories alleging the commander in chief was really born in Kenya.
The GOP nominee has also suggested that the president has engaged in a far-reaching conspiracy to keep the truth of this birthplace a secret from the American people, and claimed Obama’s birth certificate was likely forged.
An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama‘s birth certificate is a fraud.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012
Trump repeatedly called on the president to release his birth certificate, which Obama eventually did in 2011.
More recently, Trump said he doesn’t want to talk about the issue, and has declined in recent weeks to comment on his theories regarding Obama’s birthplace.
“I don’t talk about it because if I talk about that, your whole thing will be about that,” Trump told reporters this week when asked to comment on his theories about the president’s birthplace. “So I don’t talk about it.”
