Clinton: 'There is no Erasing' Trump's History of Birther Attacks on President Obama

"Barack Obama was born in America, plain and simple," Clinton said.

ByABC News
September 16, 2016, 10:37 AM

— -- Hillary Clinton today said Donald Trump owes President Obama and the American people "an apology" for pushing the notion that President Obama was not born in the U.S, and that even if he flip-flops on his position now, “there is no erasing it in history.”

"For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history,” the Democratic presidential nominee said during remarks at the Black Women’s Agenda symposium in Washington, D.C.

"Just yesterday,” she continued, “Trump, again, refused to say with his own words that the president was born in the United States. Now, Donald's advisers have the temerity to say he's doing the country a service by pushing these lies. No. He isn't. 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,” she added.

Donald Trump, who has been a leading proponent of the "birther" notion that Obama isn't a native-born U.S. citizen, again on Wednesday declined in an interview with the Washington Post to say whether President Obama was born in Hawaii.

His campaign later released a statement asserting that Trump "believes" Obama was born in the U.S. As of Friday morning, though, Trump has yet to say himself that he believes the president is American-born, as his birth certificate shows.

During Clinton's remarks this morning -- which took place less than a mile away from Trump’s new Washington, D.C. hotel where the Republican presidential nominee was scheduled to speak later in the day -- the Democratic nominee also continued to accuse her opponent of making racist and sexist remarks and argued that despite the apparent efforts of the Trump campaign, “there is no new Donald Trump.”

“We cannot become insensitive to what he says and what he stirs up,” Clinton said. “We can't just accept this. We've got to stand up to it.”

“In addition to the president, Donald Trump looks at a distinguished federal judge, born in Indiana, and he sees a Mexican, not an American,” she said, referring to Trump’s questioning of a Mexican-American judge. “He looks at a Gold Star family and sees them as Muslims, not patriotic Americans. He looks at women and decides how our looks rate on a scale of one to 10.”

"I look at America. I see everyone," she said.

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