Obama releases birth certificate to 'end silliness'
US president to make statement reaffirming fact he was born in United States to head off continuing 'birther' row
10.20am ET: With a great sense of timing, earlier this morning I'd blogged on the very subject of Trump, Obama and birtherism, which noted this from a new USA Today/Gallup opinion poll:
[I]n the USA Today poll, only 38% of Americans say Obama definitely was born in the USA, and 18% say he probably was. Fifteen percent say he probably was born in another country, and 9% say he definitely was born elsewhere.
And when the same sample was asked if Donald Trump was born in the US, here's the result:
For what it's worth, not everyone is convinced Trump was born in the USA either: 43% say he definitely was born here, and 20% say he probably was; 7% say he definitely or probably was born in another country. Nearly three in 10 say they don't know enough to say.
10.12am ET: So why did Obama decide to release his full birth certificate today?
Here's one theory, tweeted by Jordan Fabian, a reporter for The Hill newspaper in Washington DC.
And the above tweet is for the US politics geeks out there with long memories.
10.07am ET: More details on the release of the birth certificate from the White House blog:
The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn't good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access ! to the l ong form certificate and to request on that basis that the Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been getting.
10.01am ET: More nonsense from Donald Trump earlier:
Why he didn't do it when the Clintons asked for it, I don't know.
That's just a flat untruth. The Clintons never asked for Obama's birth certificate to be published although some suggest the origins of the birther argument came from the Clinton campaign during the 2008 primaries. Whether or not that is true, what is true is that the birthers set sail under their own wind long ago.
Fox News's Chris Wallace says Trump is right to claim credit for today's release.
(Weirdly, Wallace also claims that Obama's speech was a copy of the final big speech by Michael Douglas's character in the Aaron Sorkin movie The American President.)
9.56am ET: Will Obama's announcement today strangle birtherism? "This isn't about facts," says blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates at the Atlantic:
I would be shocked if this kills off the birthers. It's worth remembering that birtherism, itself, is just a mutation of the, still current theory, that Obama is a Muslim. It's likely that the "delay" in releasing the long-form certificate will be taken as evidence of yet another, or perhaps even the same, conspiracy.
9.54am ET: Fox News is all over the story, as are all the US cable networks. "I think we just heard the president call Donald Trump a carnival barker," says the Fox News White House correspondent.
"There will be sections of the population that will still not believe this," the correspondent notes, rather pessimis! tically.
9.52am ET: "We're not going to solve our problems if we get distracted by carnival barkers and sideshows," says Obama an oblique reference to Trump, surely?
"We do not have time for this kind of silliness, we've got big stuff to do, I've got big stuff to do," says Obama, before closing his statement, without taking questions from the White House press corps.
9.51am ET: "Normally, I would not comment on something like this," says Obama. But he explains that, two weeks ago during the budget debate with Republicans in Congress, he found that the biggest news story was about his birth certificate.
(That was Trump's fault: that was when he started raising the subject.)
9.48am ET: Obama is now speaking at the White House.
"This isssue has been going on for two and a half years now, I think it started during the campaign," says Obama, looking relaxed.
He says he's been "amused and puzzled" by how long the rumours have persisted, despite many investigations and the release of the shorter version of his birth certificate. "And yet this thing just keeps on going."
9.44am ET: Trump is still going, and reporters are pressing him on whether he is actually a serious candidate. Trump laughs it off.
Conspiracy theory: the White House released the birth certificate today in order to give Trump a boost? "He's starting to make Sarah Palin sound intelligent," observes one of my colleagues.
9.36am ET: Donald Trump is currently giving a press conference being shown live on Fox News and as usual Trump is full of himself on the subject of Obama's birth certificate.
Since he launched his pseudo-non-campaign for the Republican nomination, Trump has been banging on about Obama's birth. Now he's being smug.
"Today I'm very proud of myself because I've accomplished something that nobody else was able to accomplish," says Trump, never happier than when a television camera is upon him.
But h! e is sti ll trying to make hay out of the subject: "I want to look at it and I hope it's true," says Trump. "I am really honoured to have played such a big role... I'm really proud, I'm really honoured."
2.32pm BST / 9.32am ET: I'm going to hand over now to my colleague Richard Adams in Washington for coverage of the statement.
2.31pm BST / 9.21am ET: This CNN report explains a bit about why this issue has become so important that Obama feels he has had to take this step.
A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll showed that nearly 75% of Americans believe Obama was definitely or probably born in the United States. More than four in 10 Republicans, however, believe he probably or definitely was not born in America.
The US constitution says only "natural born" citizens can become president a vague clause that some members of the birther movement contend disqualifies Obama because, they insist, he was born outside the United States.
Sceptics contend, among other things, that Obama was born in his father's home country of Kenya.
2.28pm BST / 9.28am ET: I've added the full image of the birth certificate to the top of this blogpost. Refresh the page to see it.
2.23pm BST / 9.23am ET: Here is the copy of the long-form birth certificate the White House released today.
2.15pm BST / 9.15am ET: Barack Obama's presidency has been consistently dogged by questions from the US right about whether or not he is an American citizen. The president was born in Hawaii, but questions about his birth reached a new pitch when businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump raised them ag! ain as h e mulled over running for president.
Today the White House has released the "long-form" version of Obama's birth certificate and the president is to make a live statement shortly. The birth certificate says Obama was born in the state of Hawaii, which makes him eligible to hold the office of president. Obama had earlier released a standard short form, but requested copies of his original birth certificate from Hawaii officials this week.
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