In the first volume of his memoir, A Promised Land, former President Barack Obama delves into the false claims about his place of birth, which were frequently made early in his presidency — especially by then reality-television star Donald Trump and echoed by right-wing talk shows — that he was actually born in Kenya.
The claims, regularly referred to as the “birtherism” conspiracy theory, were patently false, and it was known then as well as it is now that Obama was an American-born citizen from Hawaii. In spite of that knowledge, however, Trump continued to insinuate that Obama was illegally seated as president, as the U.S. Constitution requires that only “a natural born citizen” can become commander-in-chief.
Obama wrote in his memoir that Trump’s lies provided millions of white Americans with bigoted sentiments toward the former president an “elixir for their racial anxiety.”
“It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” Obama said in his memoir. “Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president.”
Obama also writes that a shift was also becoming more apparent within the Republican Party itself, as Trump and other right-wing figures like Sarah Palin, “migrated from the fringe of GOP politics to the center — an emotional, almost visceral, reaction to my presidency, distinct from any differences in policy or ideology.”
For the first two years of his presidency, Obama tried to disengage himself from the conspiracy theory. But in 2011, as the baseless claim continued to be debated in the media, the president obliged many of his critics by releasing his long-form birth certificate, while chastising them saying: “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do.”
Despite Obama providing irrefutable proof of his birth in the U.S., Trump continued making claims that he wasn’t convinced. The business mogul even hinted that he believed it was possible that the former president was involved in the death of a health official over the issue.
“How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today,” Trump wrote in a tweet in 2013. “All others lived.”
In the fall of 2016, as Trump was running for president against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, he finally acknowledged that the birther conspiracy was false. But rather than apologize for his role in the matter, Trump refused to take any responsibility, falsely claiming instead that it was a conspiracy created by Clinton campaign staff eight years prior.
Trump has yet to make any formal apology for suggesting Obama wasn’t born in the U.S. And in private, he has continued to push the claim, doing so several months into his presidency in 2017, according to reporting from The New York Times.
Trump has made similar bigoted remarks toward other Democratic lawmakers since then. In 2019, he attacked members of “the Squad” — Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley — by tweeting that they ought to “go back” to the countries “from which they came from” — a long-established racist trope.
The remark was inaccurate in addition to being racist as three of the four representatives he attacked were born in the United States. Rep. Ilhan Omar, born in Somalia, has lived in the U.S. since she was 12, and has been a citizen since she was 17.
On the campaign trail in 2020, Trump suggested that then-candidate and now Vice President-elect Kamala Harris may also have been born outside of the U.S. “I heard today that she doesn’t meet the requirements,” Trump told reporters in August, qualifying his remarks by saying he had “no idea” whether the rumors he was peddling were true or not.
Harris was born in Oakland, California, in 1964.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today during our fundraiser. We have 72 hours to add 273 new monthly donors. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.