September 16, 2016 10:16 AM UTC

Donald Trump Goes Full-Out Reverse Birther

• 10 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: National media outlets are not happy at being “Rick-rolled” by Trump today. From the Daily Beast:

CNN anchor Jake Tapper decried how Trump had successfully gotten millions to tune into his “birther” address, only to find a drawn-out promotion of his campaign and hotel. “It’s hard to imagine this as anything other than a political Rick-roll,” Tapper remarked. “We got played again by the Trump campaign,” his colleague John King added.

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“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
     — from the movie “The Usual Suspects”

Republican Donald Trump may not be fit or qualified for the Presidency, but there’s no arguing that he is a master media manipulator. As Chris Cillizza reports for “The Fix,” Trump managed to convince news outlets to pay a lot of attention to him this morning in Washington D.C.:

Trump may have outdone himself on Friday morning. He and his campaign touted a “major” announcement at his newly-opened hotel in Washington, DC at 10 AM Friday morning.  The word was that Trump would walk away from his past skepticism about President Obama’s citizenship while also laying the blame for the birther movement at the feet of Hillary Clinton. (That, of course, isn’t true — according to numerous fact-checkers — but no matter: Trump planned to say it anyway.)

And say it he did. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” said Trump. “President Obama was born in the United States. Period.” [Pols emphasis]

Trump’s assertions about Clinton’s role in the birther movement are wrong. His simple statement that Obama was born in the United States directly contradicts myriad statements he has made questioning the president’s birthplace over the past five years…

…It was a low moment for politics and political coverage. A nothing-burger filled with falsehoods covered as though it was the Super Bowl. But for Trump, it might have been his crowning achievement: All eyes on him with the chance to direct the play in whatever way he saw fit. The ringmaster — calling the shots in all three rings of the circus. It was peak Trump.

We have nothing else to add here that isn’t glaringly obvious already.