Rev. Jesse Jackson on Friday demanded that Donald Trump apologize for supporting the idea that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., a notion he completely dismissed in a Friday press conference.
“Donald Trump’s 10-word acknowledgment today that President Barack Obama was indeed born in the United States was missing a crucial last sentence: I am sorry,” said Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.
“Now Mr. Trump should finish what he started,” Jackson said. “He needs to immediately and sincerely apologize for being among the loudest voices for six long years of the birther movement — the racially charged and politically cynical crusade to de-legitimatize the country’s first African American president.”
Jackson said Trump should also apologize to Hillary Clinton for saying she was the one who started the so-called “birther” movement. He said blaming Clinton is a “canard” that has been dismissed repeatedly.
“Mr. Trump’s statement of the obvious about President Obama’s U.S. birth was as though Mr. Trump had barely passed an exam the whole world knew the answer to on the first day of class almost eight years ago,” he said. “His tardiness, however, helped fuel the birther movement, a needless distraction from the real and important issues of state.”
