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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Video: Clinton Not Among ‘Birthers’


As CNN’s Jake Tapper explains in his latest fact-checking video, there is no evidence that Hillary Clinton started rumors during the 2008 presidential race that Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, repeated the false claim that Clinton was the original “birther” during a May 4 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Trump said Clinton “questioned his birth certificate” and “brought it up years before it was brought up by me.”

It’s true that Clinton supporters pushed the theory that Obama was born outside of the U.S. and so was ineligible to be president. But neither Trump nor his campaign has provided any evidence that such claims originated with Clinton or her 2008 campaign.

For more on the origins of the “birther” movement, read our May 5 story “Hillary Clinton Wasn’t a ‘Birther.’ ” And watch all of the previous videos from FactCheck.org’s collaboration with CNN’s “State of the Union” on our website.