For years, Donald Trump had been one of America's most prominent promoters of doubts about where Barack Obama was born.
He questioned Obama's birth certificate.
He suggested investigators were uncovering remarkable information in Hawaii.
Even after the White House released Obama's long-form birth certificate in 2011, Trump continued raising questions about its authenticity.
Then, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, Trump abruptly changed course.
Standing inside his new hotel in Washington, D.C., the Republican presidential nominee finally said the words he had resisted saying unequivocally for years:
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.”
It lasted only seconds.
But Trump didn't stop there.
Before acknowledging Obama's birthplace, he made another claim:
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”
There was a problem.
There was no evidence that Hillary Clinton or her 2008 presidential campaign had started the birther movement.
The Conspiracy Theory Predated Trump's Presidential Campaign
Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, false rumors circulated online claiming Obama had actually been born outside the United States and therefore wasn't constitutionally eligible to serve as president.
Obama's campaign released his official Hawaii Certification of Live Birth in 2008.
FactCheck.org examined the physical document that year and concluded it was authentic.
Hawaii officials also publicly confirmed Obama's birth records.
Newspaper announcements documenting Obama's birth had appeared in Honolulu newspapers shortly after he was born.
The evidence was extensive.
But the conspiracy theory survived.
And several years later, Donald Trump helped push it back into national political conversation.
Trump Becomes the Face of Birtherism
In early 2011, Trump was considering running for president.
He began publicly questioning Obama's birthplace.
Trump repeatedly asked why Obama wouldn't release his original long-form birth certificate.
The issue brought Trump enormous media attention.
During an appearance on NBC's Today in April 2011, Trump said he had people investigating Obama's birth in Hawaii and claimed:
“They cannot believe what they're finding.”
Trump never publicly produced evidence from those investigators demonstrating that Obama had been born somewhere else.
Nevertheless, the controversy grew.
On April 27, 2011, the White House released Obama's long-form birth certificate.
It showed what state officials had already confirmed:
Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Obama appeared at the White House that morning and criticized the continued obsession with the issue.
The document should have ended the controversy.
It didn't.
Trump Keeps Questioning the Birth Certificate
Trump later claimed that he had successfully forced Obama to reveal the truth and had therefore resolved the controversy.
But Trump's own statements tell a different story.
He continued raising doubts.
In 2012, Trump publicly promoted a claim from what he described as an “extremely credible source” alleging Obama's birth certificate was fraudulent.
He subsequently circulated material questioning the document's authenticity.
In 2014, Trump was still mocking the certificate, referring to Obama's release of the document as “his birth certificate, or whatever it was.”
The evidence that Obama had been born in Hawaii hadn't changed.
Trump simply continued questioning it.
The Question Follows Trump Into 2016
By 2016, Trump wasn't a television personality considering a presidential campaign.
He was the Republican nominee for president.
That made his continued unwillingness to plainly acknowledge Obama's birthplace increasingly difficult to avoid.
Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, and campaign officials acknowledged that Obama had been born in Hawaii.
Trump himself remained reluctant to provide a similarly direct answer.
Then, on September 15, The Washington Post published an interview in which Trump was again asked whether he believed Obama had been born in the United States.
“I'll answer that question at the right time,” Trump said.
Asked what his answer was, Trump declined to provide it.
“I just don't want to answer it yet.”
The next morning, everything changed.
“President Barack Obama Was Born in the United States. Period.”
Trump's campaign announced that he would address the issue.
Reporters gathered at the newly opened Trump International Hotel in Washington.
But before discussing Obama's birthplace, Trump spent much of the event highlighting his hotel and introducing military veterans supporting his campaign.
Eventually he addressed birtherism.
The entire statement was remarkably brief.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what I mean.”
Then:
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.”
And Trump moved on.
He took no questions about the reversal.
Clinton Didn't Start It
Trump's statement resolved one question while repeating another unsupported claim.
Hillary Clinton and her 2008 campaign did not start the birther movement.
There had been individual Clinton supporters who circulated rumors about Obama during the bitter 2008 Democratic primary.
But investigations by multiple fact-checking organizations found no evidence that Clinton herself or her campaign launched the allegation that Obama had been born outside the United States.
Trump nevertheless repeatedly attributed the conspiracy theory to Clinton.
That allowed him to acknowledge Obama's birthplace while simultaneously attempting to transfer responsibility for the controversy to his Democratic opponent.
Trump also claimed:
“I finished it.”
That was difficult to reconcile with the historical record.
Obama's birth records had been publicly documented years earlier.
And Trump himself continued questioning Obama's birthplace and birth certificate after the long-form certificate was released.
Obama Responds
President Obama was asked about Trump's announcement later that day.
His response was dry.
“I was pretty confident about where I was born.”
Obama said he hoped the presidential election would focus on issues that mattered to voters.
Hillary Clinton responded more forcefully.
She accused Trump of spending years attempting to delegitimize America's first Black president and said Trump owed Obama and the American people an apology.
Trump did not offer one.
Instead, his campaign attempted to declare the issue settled.
Five Years Reduced to One Sentence
Trump's September 16 statement was remarkable partly because of how little time he devoted to it.
Years of questioning Obama's birthplace ended with essentially one sentence:
“President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.”
There was no explanation for why Trump had previously questioned Obama's birthplace.
There was no explanation for the supposed investigators Trump once said were uncovering surprising information in Hawaii.
There was no explanation for why he continued questioning the birth certificate after Obama released the long-form document.
And there was no apology to Obama.
Instead, Trump attempted to place responsibility for the controversy on Hillary Clinton.
The evidence did not support that claim.
The Birther Chapter Finally Closes
Trump's statement didn't erase the years preceding it.
He had helped transform a conspiracy theory about America's first Black president into a national political controversy.
It brought him television interviews, headlines and political attention years before he formally entered presidential politics.
Obama produced his long-form birth certificate in 2011.
Hawaii officials confirmed his birthplace.
Contemporary birth announcements supported it.
Independent fact-checkers examined the documentation.
Yet Trump continued raising doubts.
Only on September 16, 2016 — 53 days before the presidential election — did Donald Trump finally state unequivocally what the evidence had demonstrated all along:
Barack Obama was born in the United States.