Donald Trump got a little bit birther-curious in his interview with ABC News, saying of President Obama’s time growing up in Hawaii: “The reason I have a little doubt, just a little, is because he grew up and nobody knew him.”
Trump was speaking with Ashleigh Banfield in an interview that aired Thursday morning, and said “that anybody that even gives any hint” of not believing Obama was born in Hawaii, “they label them as an idiot.”
“Let me tell you, I’m a really smart guy,” Trump said. “I was a really good student at the best school in the country. The reason I have a little doubt, just a little, is because he grew up and nobody knew him.”
“You may go back and interview people from my kindergarten,” he continued. “They’ll remember me. Nobody comes forward. Nobody knows who he is until later in his life. It’s very strange. The whole thing is very strange.”
Trump has blown the birther dog-whistle before — in his speech at CPAC he said: “Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further: the people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don’t know who he is. Crazy!”
Here’s the ABC video. The birther comments come in around 2:40:
In other Trump news, he’s very rich.
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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