Donald Trump said he plans in a speech Friday to address his false conspiracy theory that President Obama was born in Kenya.
Hours after Trump refused to address the question of whether he believed Obama was born in the US in a Washington Post interview, his campaign on Thursday released a statement saying, "Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States."
Here are three lies that Trump may mention in his speech Friday.
1. Hillary Clinton first raised the birther issue to smear Obama during the 2008 election.
2. Trump settled the controversy in 2011 — and brought it to a "conclusion" when Obama released his full certificate showing he was born in Hawaii.
By that time, prominent Republicans were knocking down the conspiracy theory.
As Politico reported in 2011:
“I believe the president was born in the United States. There are real reasons to get this guy out of office,” former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said recently.
“I don’t question the authenticity of his birth certificate, but I do question what planet he’s from when I look at his policies,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty joked.
And the talk radio host Michael Medved warned against embracing what has now become a staple of the racist right: “It makes us look weird. It makes us look crazy. It makes us look demented. It makes us look sick, troubled, and not suitable for civilized company," he said in 2009. "I’m not a conspiracist, but this could be a very big conspiracy to make conservatives disgrace themselves.”
3. That he stopped pushing the theory in 2011.
Trump raised questions about Obama's citizenship as recently as January 2016 when he told CNN that he didn't know if Obama was a citizen.
“Who knows,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when asked if Obama was a citizen. “Who knows? Who cares right now? We’re talking about something else, OK. I mean, I have my own theory on Obama. Someday I’ll write a book. I’ll do another book, and it will do very successfully.”
In August 2012, he said an "extremely credible source" told him that Obama's birth certificate was a fraud.
In September 2012, he shared an article claiming that Obama's birth certificate was a fake.
In August 2013, he boasted about getting Obama to release his birth certificate that he said Obama "miraculously" found.
In December 2013, he suggested that the death of an official who verified Obama's "birth certificate" was suspicious.
In June 2014, he suggested that the birth certificate was fake, calling it "whatever that was."
In September 2014, Trump asked hackers to hack into Obama's college records to check his "place of birth."
He also retweeted other people who claimed that Obama "fabricated" his own birth certificate and that it was a "computer generated forgery."
Tom Namako contributed to this report.