By George E. Curry
NNPA Columnist
George E. Curry
Donald Trump, who is again flirting with the possibility of running for president on the Republican ticket, has garnered widespread publicity by repeating thoroughly discredited claims that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be president of the United States. He has hired private investigators to look into whether Obama was born in Hawaii.
Trump should save his money. There is no doubt that Obama was born in the United States. The only people who refuse to accept this truth are ignorant, brain dead or decline to let facts get in way of their right-wing politics. In this case, Donald Trump might fit all three categories. In a letter to the New York Times, Trump wrote, “There is a very large segment of our society who believe [sic] that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States.”
For the record, Barack Hussein Obama was born at 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu. His parents were Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr.
What is the source of this information?
Obama’s official birth certificate that was issued by Hawaii’s Department of Health. The birth was registered August 8, 1961 and the “Certification of Live Birth” notes that Obama’s mother was Caucasian and his father was African.
In addition to the official birth document, Obama’s entrance into the world was recorded in both local newspapaers, the August 13 Honolulu Advertiser and the August 14 Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Trump said on April 7: “Well, guess what? His grandparents probably put in a thing because everybody wanted to become a Unites States citizen, more so than today to be honest with you, because they were more proud in those days. But for purposes of hospitalization and welfare, you want to become an American citizen. So, the grandparents living in Honolulu, living in Hawaii, probably put it in. It’s a very simple explanation.” It may be a simple explanation, but it is a wrong one.
The Honolulu Advertiser noted, “In November 2008, the Advertiser reported that the first mention of the future president appeared in a Sunday Advertiser birth announcement that ran on Aug. 13, 1961:
‘Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Hgy., son, Aug.4.’
“The identical announcement ran the following day in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
“Birthers wave off those birth announcements, saying that Obama family members 48 years ago could have phoned in false information to both newspapers.
“Such vital statistics, however, were not sent to the newspaper by the general public but by the Health Department, which received the information directly from hospitals, [Health Department spokeswoman Janice] Okubo said.”
Trump was also wrong about relatives on the father’s side.
He asserted in his letter to the New York Times, “His grandmother from Kenya stated on tape, that he was born in Kenya and she was there to watch the birth. His family is fighting over which hospital in Hawaii he was born in – they just don’t know.”
Not true, according to FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania whose goal is to “reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.” It noted, “He [Trump] claims the president’s grandmother says Obama was born in Kenya. In fact, the recording to which he refers shows Sarah Obama repeatedly saying through a translator: ‘He was born in America.’” The site further confirmed that the future president was born in Honolulu’s Kapiolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital.
In an April 7th interview on The Today Show, Trump charged, “He [Obama] doesn’t have a birth certificate or he hasn’t shown it. He has what’s called a certificate of live birth. That’s something easy to get…A certificate of live birth is not even signed by anybody. I saw his. I read it very carefully. It doesn’t have a serial number, doesn’t have a signature…”
Again, any apprentice should have known better.
FactCheck.org stated, “Had Trump looked at our 2008 article, he would see the signature stamp of Alvin Onaka, certifying the document is ‘a true copy or abstract of the record on file,’ issued to Obama June 7, 2007 as he was preparing to run for president. Furthermore, the serial number (actually a ‘certificate’ number) shows quite clearly in our photos. The number is 151 1961-010641, for whatever that’s worth.”
It added, “Trump is also mistaken about what legally qualifies as a ‘birth certificate,’ which is actually a broad generic term with no specific legal meaning. The U.S. Department of State uses the term ‘certified birth certificate’ to refer to exactly what Obama produced, which Hawaii calls a ‘Certification of Live Birth.’ The State Department accepts a state-certified photocopy of a hospital-generated document, as was commonly used in the past. But Hawaii, like many states, now uses computer-printed documents instead, and Hawaii’s form also meets State Department standards for establishing citizenship.”
Ironically, when pressed for a copy of his birth certificate, Trump also produced a “Certificate of Birth.” It shows that Donald John Trump was born at 10:54 a.m. on June 14, 1947 at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, N.Y.
In an interview on Good Morning America, Trump claimed, “…He [Obama] grew up and nobody knew him…Nobody ever comes forward. Nobody knows who he is until later in life. It’s very strange. The whole thing is very strange.”
What is strange is that Trump never saw the many television programs and newspaper articles about Obama’s early years in Hawaii.
For example, the Maui News published a story January 21, 2009 in which it quoted Aimee Yatsushiro, who was a student teacher in Obama’s kindergarten class. She remembered 5-year-old Obama as a “cute, likable, heavy build child.” Katherine Nakamoto, who retired as a teacher at Noelani Elementary School, said, “We called him Barack…He was very well mannered, respectful, confident and independent.”
Trump struck out at every turn. FactCheck.org stated, “If Donald worked for us, we’d have to say: ‘Donald, you’re fired – for incompetence.’”
George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.