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Tag: bitherism
Trump Promised To Release His Tax Returns With Obama’s Birth Certificate — So Where Are They?

Trump Promised To Release His Tax Returns With Obama’s Birth Certificate — So Where Are They?

A few months ago, The National Memo compiled every single instance, from April 2011 to June 2016, when Donald Trump pledged to release his tax returns as a presidential candidate.

Over the years, Trump used his taxes as leverage for his own political purposes: On October 24, 2015, Trump said he would release his taxes “when we find out the true story on Hillary’s emails.” On February 25, 2016, the story changed: “Nobody would ever put out their returns that’s under an audit.” (Trump has been under continuous IRS audit since 2002, according to his lawyers. That does not and should not stop him from releasing returns, a practice every president since Nixon has observed.)

Ahead of the 2012 elections, when Trump was flirting with a bid at the presidency, he told George Stephanopoulos “I’m going to do the tax returns when Obama does his birth certificate.”

A week later, Obama released his birth certificate. Still, no tax returns from Trump. “So, Donald Trump, Now That Obama Has Released His Birth Certificate, Are You Going To Release Your Tax Returns (As You Said You Would)?” Business Insider asked at the time. “Will Donald Trump Now Release His Tax Returns?” wondered ThinkProgress.

Three weeks later, Trump dropped out.

Now that Trump, after five years, finally takes the president at his word that his birth certificate is legitimate (he did not at the time, calling the document “his long form birth certificate — or whatever it may be), will he finally release his tax returns, as he promised he would?

Donald Trump Jr. said Thursday of his father’s taxes, “there’s nothing there, but if there is, they’re going to try to create a story,” referring to “every want-to-be auditor in the country.”

“We don’t need a story with everyone questioning everything,” he said.

Photo: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump walks throughthe  atrium of his new Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 16, 2016.  REUTERS/Mike Segar

#EndorseThis: ‘We Got Played, Again’ — Media Furious After Trump’s Birther Press Conference

#EndorseThis: ‘We Got Played, Again’ — Media Furious After Trump’s Birther Press Conference

The immediate media reaction to Donald Trump’s advertised press conference on birtherism today can be described in three words: “We got played.”

After Trump and his surrogates repeatedly dodged questions all week about whether or not the Republican candidate for president was still a birther, building up to this very event, the media was instead tricked into broadcasting a different scene: For 20 minutes, from Trump’s own recently renovated hotel in Washington, D.C., a series of military veterans including multiple medal of honor recipients endorsed and praised Trump.

After that, for about 30 seconds, Trump turned his attention to his birther history, blaming Hillary Clinton for “starting” it (not true), and then congratulating himself for forcing the president to release his birth certificate.

Of course, such a release would not have been news at all if Trump had not hammered the question into the news cycle for years and years — he, more than anyone, used his public prominence to indulge what would otherwise have been one of many ramblings of the internet’s fringe.


Then, he left. Members of the media, who had been promised a press conference — time to ask the candidate questions about his years and years of bogus “investigation,” which he has avoided this whole election — yelled angrily at Trump as they realized they had been tricked.

Jake Tapper called it “A political Rick Roll” — Trump promised a speech on birtherism, but instead we got 20 minutes of endorsements.

John King said it plainly: “We got played, again, by the Trump campaign, which is what they do.”

What do military endorsements have to do with Trump’s 5-year advocacy of the birther conspiracy theory? Nothing. But the Trump campaign had been building up to this press conference all week, with no mention of anything except a statement on the president’s birth.

In an interview with the Washington Post the day before his birther press conference, Trump said of his support of the conspiracy theory, “I’ll answer that question at the right time… I just don’t want to answer it yet.”

That same day, Megyn Kelly accused Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson of dodging the question of Obama’s birth after she said “he has said that he does not talk about that anymore.”

So it goes. The media continues, for some reason, to believe that Trump will eventually tell the truth. Today, he used them to bury the political story of the year (his birtherism and subsequent racial dog-whistling) after 20 minutes of a campaign advertisement that would otherwise have not been aired on live TV.

At least one person did the right thing (or was told to): After the press conference, and after producers and journalists were physically stopped from joining him, the pool videographer for the event stopped his tour of Trump’s new hotel and deleted the tape, in protest.