The prospect of Donald Trump actually running for president has always seemed patently ridiculous, no matter what he was saying. And yet there was a time when his personal crazy combined with the crazy du jour and carried him towards actually following through on his promise to run. (Or should I say his threat?) One big part of that crazy was his birtherism — as recently as April 2011 Trump actually sent researchers to Hawaii to sniff out the "truth" about President Obama's birthplace. He seemed pretty confident that he was on to something, even telling Anderson Cooper, "Well, I've been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing." Somehow, I don't think that panned out!
But hey, being a birther isn't quite as popular as it was back in 2008. And what with Mitt Romney and Trump holding a fundraising event tonight, the Obama team saw it as an opportunity to call them both out:
And they're right! That doesn't look so good for Romney, who would now probably appreciate it if Trump would A) shut up about that stuff and B) still give him all the money. But guys. But guys. Donald Trump is not a "birther." Those people are nuts! He just happens to support the "place of birth" movement, as he tweeted this morning:
Totally different.
(Of course, Trump's hilarious rebranding attempt aside, it seems he's really sticking to the idea that President Obama was not born in the U.S., and that McCain's dismissiveness towards the wackos who do think that helped him lose the election. Let's see how that works out for him.)
