Donald Trump Finally Admits President Obama Was Born In United States

After five years of saying that President Obama was not born in the United States and therefore not a legitimate president, Donald Trump on Friday reversed his stance with a short statement made at his new hotel in Washington, D.C.

"President Barack Obama was born in the United States," Trump said. "Period."

The New York businessman offered no apology for the ongoing attacks on Obama.

However, Trump once again tried to claim that it was Hillary Clinton who started the so-called "birther" movement — she did not — and looked to move past the issue, which has lingered over his campaign for president.

"Hillary Clinton in her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy," Trump said incorrectly. "I finished it."

The fact-checking website Politifact has rated that claim "false."

"There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the charge that Obama was not born in the United States," the website said.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called out Trump's accusation: "Hillary brought it up? What a liar," he said on CNN.

Some in the media complained because Trump's 30-second statement without taking questions from the media attracted nearly a half-hour of non-stop media coverage.

"We got played, again, by the Trump campaign, which is what they do," CNN's John King said on air. "He got a live event broadcast for some 20 minutes."

For her part, Clinton offered a prebuttal Friday morning on the campaign trail, saying that even if Trump reversed his view, it doesn't undo his longstanding position on the matter.

"For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie," Clinton said before an audience at the Black Women's Agenda Symposium in Washington. "He's feeding into the worst impulses, the bigotry and bias that lurks in our country. Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple. And Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology."

Trump had scheduled the event and teased that he may be making an announcement about his birther claims.

In an interview with the Washington Post published Thursday, Trump refused to say definitively that Obama was born in America. His campaign spokesman Jason Miller released a statement Thursday night saying Trump does, in fact, believe the president was born in the United States, and instead cast blame on Clinton for starting the so-called "birther" movement. (She did not.)

Trump again refused to make his thoughts clear on the matter either way in an appearance on Fox Business on Friday morning, He told host Maria Bartiromo that people would have to tune in to the opening of his new Trump International Hotel in the nation's capital for "a big announcement on it" today.

"You watch my statement," he told Bartiromo. "I have to — we have to keep the suspense going, OK?"

That "announcement" ended up being an infomercial for his campaign and new hotel — with a short statement at the very end.

One of Trump's first big moments in the national political spotlight was his campaign to get Obama to release his long-form birth certificate, something the president ended up doing. Even after that, Trump continued to peddle conspiracy theories that the certificate wasn't legitimate.

Clinton seized on Trump's stance in a speech Friday morning.

"Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple," Clinton said. "Donald Trump owes him and the American people an apology."

Image via Rick Uldricks, Patch Staff