Donald Trump, who is again flirting with the possibility of running for president on the Republican ticket, has garnered widespread publicity by repeating thoroughly discredited claims that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be president of the United States. He has hired private investigators to look into whether Obama was born in Hawaii.
Trump
should save his money. There is no
doubt that Obama was born in the United States. The only people who refuse to accept this truth are
ignorant, brain dead or decline to let facts get in way of their right-wing
politics. In this case, Donald
Trump might fit all three categories.
For the
record, Barack Hussein Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961 in
Honolulu. His parents were Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
What is
the source of this information?
Obama’s
official birth certificate that was issued by Hawaii’s Department of
Health. The birth was registered
August 8, 1961 and the “Certification of Live Birth” notes that Obama’s mother
was Caucasian and his father was African.
On a
television morning show Trump said on April 7: “Well, guess what? His grandparents probably put in a
thing because everybody wanted to become a Unites States citizen, more so than
today to be honest with you, because they were more proud in those days. But for purposes of hospitalization and
welfare, you want to become an American citizen. So, the grandparents living in Honolulu, living in Hawaii,
probably put it in. It’s a very
simple explanation.”
It may be
a simple explanation, but it is a wrong one.
The
Honolulu Advertiser noted, “In November 2008, the Advertiser reported that the
first mention of the future president appeared in a Sunday Advertiser birth
announcement that ran on Aug. 13, 1961:
‘Mr. and
Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hgy., son, Aug.4.’
“The
identical announcement ran the following day in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
“Birthers
wave off those birth announcements, saying that Obama family members 48 years
ago could have phoned in false information to both newspapers.
“Such
vital statistics, however, were not sent to the newspaper by the general public
but by the Health Department, which received the information directly from
hospitals, (Health Department spokeswoman Janice) Okubo said.”
Trump
asserted, “His grandmother from Kenya stated on tape, that he was born in Kenya
and she was there to watch the birth. His family is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in –
they just don’t know.”
Not true,
according to FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at
the University of Pennsylvania whose goal is to “reduce the level of deception
and confusion in U.S. politics.” It noted, “He (Trump) claims the president’s grandmother says Obama was
born in Kenya. In fact, the
recording to which he refers shows Sarah Obama repeatedly saying through a
translator: ‘He was born in America.’” The site further confirmed that the future president was born in
Honolulu’s Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital.
Trump
charged, “He (Obama) doesn’t have a birth certificate or he hasn’t shown
it. He has what’s called a
certificate of live birth. That’s
something easy to get…A certificate of live birth is not even signed by
anybody. I saw his. I read it very carefully. It doesn’t have a serial number, doesn’t
have a signature…”
Again,
any apprentice should have known better.
FactCheck.org
stated, “Had Trump looked at our 2008 article, he would see the signature stamp
of Alvin Onaka, certifying the document is ‘a true copy or abstract of the
record on file,’ issued to Obama June 7, 2007 as he was preparing to run for
president. Furthermore, the serial
number (actually a ‘certificate’ number) shows quite clearly in our
photos. The number is 151
1961-010641, for whatever that’s worth.”
It added,
“Trump is also mistaken about what legally qualifies as a ‘birth certificate,’
which is actually a broad generic term with no specific legal meaning. The U.S. Department of State uses the
term ‘certified birth certificate’ to refer to exactly what Obama produced,
which Hawaii calls a ‘Certification of Live Birth.’ The State Department
accepts a state-certified photocopy of a hospital-generated document, as was
commonly used in the past.”
Ironically,
when pressed for a copy of his birth certificate, Trump also produced a “Certificate
of Birth.” It shows that Donald
John Trump was born at 10:54 a.m. on June 14, 1947 at Jamaica Hospital in
Queens, N.Y.
Trump
claimed, “…He (Obama) grew up and nobody knew him…Nobody ever comes
forward. Nobody knows who he is
until later in life. It’s very strange. The whole thing is very strange.”
What is
strange is that Trump never saw the many television programs and newspaper
articles about Obama’s early years in Hawaii.
Trump
struck out at every turn.
George E.
Curry is a keynote speaker, moderator and media coach.
