Trump Formulates the Next Conspiracy Theory

U.S. President Obama released his birth certificate to counter rumors that he was not born in the United States. But his opponent Trump is continuing to cheerily spin tales. “Why he didn’t do it when everybody else was asking for it, I don’t know,” said Donald Trump, who had just gotten out of a helicopter on Wednesday morning at an airport in New Hampshire.

Black on White

Immediately before this, the White House had published the long version of the certificate online, which proves the birth of “Barack Hussein Obama II” on Aug. 4, 1961 at 7:24 am in the Kapiolani Hospital, Honolulu, Hawaii. It is signed by the doctor at the time and Stanley Ann Dunham, his white mother from Kansas. But Trump, the real estate tycoon, has been making a name for himself as a possible Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections by repeating the conjecture for weeks on end that Obama was actually born in Kenya. Now he is demanding that Obama publish documents of a completely different type.

Trump says that Obama was a “terrible student,” from what his fellow students remember and that Obama himself apparently admits to in a witty manner. Since Columbia and Harvard are two elite universities in the so-called Ivy League, Trump now wants to know, “How does a bad student go to Columbia, and then go to Harvard?”

Obama responds: “I’ve got better stuff to do.”

Just as the long-lasting conspiracy theory about the first African-American U.S. president seems to have been disproved, Trump has introduced the next one. The surprise release of the birth certificate and Obama’s statement on this subject in the White House just a few minutes after Trump’s statement will do little to change this.

Obama has “watched with bemusement” as the debate about his origin continued, the president told journalists. Obama said: “We’ve got big problems to solve,” like the budget deficit, combating the national debt and necessary investments in infrastructure and education. Agreements above party politics are allegedly not possible, as long as a part of the population is getting distracted by “sideshows and carnival barkers.” “We do not have time for this kind of silliness,” said Obama. “We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do.”

Trump Is Unimpressed

At the same time, Donald Trump showed no remorse at the impromptu press conference at the airport when his belief was refuted that Obama was born in Kenya — homeland of his father, Barack Hussein Obama — and only then brought to the U.S. “Today, I am very proud of myself,” Trump said in an unimpressed tone, “because I’ve accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish. […] Our president has finally released a birth certificate.” Trump will look at this document, but he assumes that it is genuine, “so the press can stop asking me questions [about it].”

Oh yes, Mr. Trump, the press.

Clinton’s Team Sowed Doubts First

Doubts about Obama’s birth on U.S. soil were expressed during the 2008 primaries. They were originally spread by his former Democratic rival’s team, led by Hillary Clinton.

Obama consequently put the official “Certificate of Live Birth” on the web, which shows his birth date, the time, the names of the parents and the place of birth as Honolulu. This certificate has a higher legal status in Hawaii than the full-length birth certificate and is required for issuing a driver’s license or passport.

However, because this document, which was issued by computer, does not report the hospital where the birth took place and the signature of the doctor treating the patient is missing, critics are continuing to pester. In constituencies where the moon landing is perceived as a production in the Nevada Desert and the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001 is seen as an “inside job” by American intelligence services, the theory that Obama was not a “genuine” U.S. citizen remained rife for almost two and a half years.

Since the respected U.S. media did not spend time on the obviously absurd theory of Obama’s birth in Africa, the number of so-called “birthers” who thought this theory was true increased. In surveys, sometimes almost 30 percent of Americans expressed little or considerable doubt that their president was born in the U.S.

Trump Announced “Amazing Discoveries”

Trump took over the search for an influential theme of the birther theory. The German-born* entrepreneur claimed in recent weeks in several interviews and speeches for the tea party that he sent several investigators to Hawaii, and they brought back “amazing discoveries” that he will publish soon. Trump gave the conspiracy theory of the president who should not even be president access to mainstream society. Suddenly, in television interviews with respected T.V. stations, Obama was not asked whether he was really born in Hawaii; instead, he was advised to disprove the doubters by publishing the full-length version of his birth certificate.

On Tuesday, Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, was obviously annoyed when responding to a similar question asked by Ed Henry, a CNN correspondent, during a press conference at the White House. “Well, what do you think, Ed? It is a distraction, obviously. This is a settled issue,” Carney sighed.

Invalid Debate

The facts actually showed that this was an invalid debate. The Honolulu Advertiser published the birth of “Barack H. Obama,” the son of “Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama,” living on 6085 Kalianaole Highway, on Aug. 13. CNN reported on Tuesday after doing local research, the newspaper only accepts such information from the health authorities, not from parents or grandparents. In addition, during the past few years, several officials had said that they had seen the full-length birth certificate, including the Democratic governor of Hawaii, George W. Bush and senior staff in the government offices.

There would have been no reason for Obama’s parents to conceal the birth of their son in Kenya, because as a child of an American mother, he automatically received U.S. citizenship. Neither his father, who was killed in a car crash in 1982, nor his mother, who died of cancer in 1995, would have guessed 50 years ago that their son would one day become president.

John McCain Was Not Born in the U.S.

The U.S. president must be a “natural-born citizen of the United States” in accordance with Article II of the U.S. Constitution. But Constitutional experts are by no means certain that the concept of “natural-born citizen,” which is never more clearly defined, actually ever stipulates that you need to be born on U.S. soil.

In the last election campaign, someone ran who was definitely not born on U.S. territory: John McCain, who stood for the Republicans, was the son of a U.S. officer born in the Panama Canal Zone. Consequently, in a legally non-binding resolution of the U.S. Senate in April 2008, it was determined that it could not be the intention of the Constitution “to restrict the constitutional rights of children of Americans who serve in the armed forces, and to prevent these children from serving as president of the United States.”**

Incidentally, at the time of the elections, the Senate had no doubt about the legality of Obama’s candidacy.

* Editor’s Note: Donald Trump was born June 14, 1946 in the borough of Queens, New York.

** Editor’s Note: This quote, although accurately translated, cannot be verified.