A spokesman for Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, said that Trump does not want to discuss where President Barack Obama was born. Cohen called the controversy surrounding Trump’s question ‘a distraction’ and decided to blame the controversy on ‘the liberal media.’
Trump was reached by phoned not long after Cohen’s statements were made, and he seemingly disagreed with his own spokesperson, saying the following:
“I don’t imagine this is distraction at all,” Trump said. “In fact, we have a fundraiser that’s going to take place in a couple of hours, and I’m just walking through the lobby of Trump international and this place is packed.”
This has now become an issue for Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, which he won by claiming the Texas primary on Tuesday night. The theatrics by Trump prior to a fundraiser with Romney in Las Vegas put a damper on things for Romney. In the morning on Tuesday, Trump appeared on CNBC to discuss his comments from last week regarding a booklet published in 1991 with Obama in it. The booklet was published by Obama’s “then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel … touts Obama as ‘born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.'”
“It’s hitting very close to home and they’re very nervous about it,” Trump said. “They’re very afraid of the issue. They don’t like the issue. And you know what? You’d say the same thing if you were in their position.”
Trump has claimed that the administration for Obama is attempting to use reverse psychology.
“When something that they don’t like gets put in papers the best thing you can do is say, ‘Oh we love it, we love it.’ What they’re doing is reverse psychology and I don’t blame them one bit. They hate this subject. They hate it more than anybody has hated any subject, and the best they can do is to just say, ‘Oh we’re so happy it was brought up,'” Trump said. “And people like you, who I assume they consider are suckers, write exactly what they say. And I don’t know if you’re a sucker or not. It depends on whether or not you write it.”
“They don’t love it at all. They hate it. And let me tell you, I have plenty of friends in there and they will tell you, they will tell me, they do not like this subject one bit. This is not a good subject for them,” he said.
Trump has also requested that Obama release his college transcripts as well.
“Why isn’t he showing his college transcripts that have a little clause at the bottom that say, a little space at the bottom that says, ‘You were born where.’ It says, ‘Born where.’ And for some reason nobody’s been able to find those applications for college,” he said.
Trump went onto set aside the people who claim that his comments have been hurting the campaign for Romney.
“This is a very big subject for very many people. People can try to belittle it, but I will tell you I know better than anybody because I walk down the streets and I have people screaming with love because of it,” he said. “I have a tremendous following whether you like or don’t like it.”
