DOVER, N.H. — After weeks of suggesting Barack Obama was born in Africa, Donald Trump hastened to boast that he had forced the Democratic president to release a detailed Hawaii birth certificate disproving that claim, painting an apparent setback as a victory within minutes of arriving in the first-in-the-nation primary state.
“Today I am very proud of myself because I have accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish,” Trump told reporters Wednesday shortly after his black-and-red helicopter touched down in Portsmouth.
He said he was honored “to have played such a big role in hopefully — hopefully — getting rid of this issue. Now, we have to look at it; we have to see, is it real?”
Trump said he hoped the birth certificate “checks out beautifully,” but he used the opportunity before television cameras to again sharply criticize Obama on several fronts, including Libya policy and gasoline prices. He also raised questions anew about Obama’s education record and how he got into college. But he again offered no proof of anything amiss.
Trump’s blistering attacks on Obama — including raising widely debunked rumors that the president was born abroad — have piqued the interest of some Republican voters. He has seen his standing in some polls grow in the months since he first dangled a presidential candidacy before a GOP primary electorate looking for a leader to aggressively challenge the Democratic president.
Many rank-and-file Republicans still dismiss Trump as a nonserious distraction.
But as he easily grabs headlines, other potential candidates are playing a more cautious game, and most don’t seem eager to talk about him. They’ve been distancing themselves from the so-called birther claims in recent days, and most weren’t eager to weigh in Wednesday.
