Washington – Real estate tycoon Donald Trump said Thursday he hopes questions surrounding Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship won’t be the defining issue if he’s chosen as the Republican candidate to challenge the president’s re-election.
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Trump told NBC News in an interview that plans to decide by June whether to run. He said that if he’s nominated, “I’d like to beat him straight up,” not on the basis of the birth issue.
Trump said he didn’t introduce the citizenship issue, but was asked about it during an interview a month ago. Since then, he said he’s looked into it and believes “there is a big possibility” Obama may have violated the Constitution.
Officials in Hawaii have certified that Obama was born in that state. But “birthers” have demanded additional proof, asserting he could have been born in Kenya. “I’m not convinced that he has one,” Trump said of the birth certificate issue.
“I’d like to have him show his birth certificate,” he said of Obama. “And to be honest with you, I hope he can.”
Asked in an interview broadcast on the “Today” show how genuine his presidential ambition is, Trump said, “I always take things seriously, but I’ve never taken it seriously like this.”
“I wish I didn’t have to do it,” he said.
“I wish this was the greatest place in the world,” Trump said, but he also said jobs are disappearing in the United States and that Obama has given the country “a terrible presidency.”
Trump said that if the current fight over budget issues forces a shutdown, “I think the president will be blamed.”
He accused Obama of carrying out a confusing policy on the civil war in Libya, saying “nobody knows what’s happening, and now it looks like (Libyan strongman Moammar) Gadhafi is going to beat the United States.”
“I’m only interested in Libya if we get the oil,” Trump said. He said Obama “doesn’t have a doctrine (on foreign affairs.) Foreign affairs is, we take care of ourselves first”
Of Obama, he said, “I want him to do well. … I love this country, but this country is going to hell. … The world laughs at us. They won’t be laughing if I’m elected president.”
He can continue to bang away at Obama’s birth certificate, his own lack of business midos with all the bankruptcies he has left in his wake, or his crude efforts to get attention that border on obcessive ego. He and Glen Beck would make a “dream ticket” for all the teaparty nutcases who will lose the 2012 elections fof the Republicans and guaranteee 4 more years of Obama, which is what most of us daven for.
On most issues I totely disagree the way the donald behaves. Especially the way he feeds his big ego. (Your Fired) Unfortunately this time the don is right. I myself would love to see Mr. Obama’s birth certificate. Guessing. you will win the lotto before you will see it.
The Donald brings up VALID points. If you listen to ENTIRE interviews as opposed to snippets here & theremost normal people would agree in concept. That being said I would not vote for him in a primary.
That is the dumbest comment made today on VIN.
Thank you for showing the other VIN readership the caliber of some of the people on here.
If he didn’t want this to be an issue he shouldn’t have brought it up!
wish the Donald becomes president and i wish Obama is proven to have lied re his birth place
Donald does not bring up any valid points at all.
I’ve heard him make claims that nobody at Columbia University knew who he was…. that is not true. There are quite a few interviews with professors and students who knew him there.
Donald says Obama is “hiding” his birth certificate. Obama is hiding nothing as was clearly stated by both the previous (Republican) and current (Democrat) governors. What Obama has is given to ANYONE born in NI who requests a copy of their birth certificate. That “Certificate of Live Birth” is all you get. You cannot get anything else. The full record is controlled by the state of HI. State law prohibits that document from being released. If Donald wants, he can move to HI, run for the legislature and change the law.
Donald is now making himself COMPLETELY unelectable. The “Glenn Beck” types might go for this nonsense, but nobody else. For a short time, Conservative intellectuals considered him a possibility, now he is the joke of the day… again.
FYI: I lost my birth certificate. I asked the state to send me a new one. They did, but it looks different. It is more modern-looking. It also says “Certificate of Live Birth”.
11, its nice they have it online when the state of Hawaii, where he supposedly was born. DOES NOT have it. They may have a “certificate of live birth” which has nothing official on it and can be bought on the streets of Chicago for ten bucks!
Obama would not have spent OVER TWO MILLION DOLLARS in legal fees if he had nothing to hide.
But alas he is a god to the left so the press is quiet about it.
He’s got nothing except celebrity, so he’s trying to do something to ingratiate himself with the fringe loonies.
i remember how ‘conveniently’ he went to visit his grandma right before she ‘passed away’….
President Obama has already displayed his birth certificate so anyone still making an issue of this is an idiot.
Another egotist looking for notoriety.
It’s incredible that Frum people could actually be LIBERAL DEMOCRATS!! It’s embarrassing.
When Trump first started out in business (using the millions he got from his father), he was able to scam his investors out of even more millions of dollars because they assumed that Donald was wealthy and successful. They never bothered to check his bank account, and Donald never offered to show them his balance sheets. So, I guess that Trump himself knows quite a lot about hiding important information.
1) The birthers are wasting their time.
2) I don’t think Trump is serious about running. He has far too many skeletons in his closet to ever get any nomination. I think he just wants to call attention to how lousy a president Jimmy Carter the Second is.