Trump on birther issue: 'I think I did a good job'

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Donald Trump said he knew it'd come up and it did: How did he explain his recent change of heart on President Obama's status as a natural born U.S. citizen?

Trump, of course, was a leading proponent of the birther movement in 2011, which falsely argued that Obama was not born in Hawaii. That year, Obama released his long-form birth certificate settling the matter, though Trump in the years that followed never acknowledged that the issue was resolved in his mind until very recently.

In his answer Monday night, Trump, as he has recently, blamed Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign for fostering the theory, saying they had failed to ultimately get the president to prove his birth status.

“When I got involved, I didn’t fail," Trump said. "I got him to give the birth certificate."

"I think I did a good job," he added.

Clinton responded incredulously: "Well, just listen to what you heard."

“It can’t be dismissed that easily," the Democratic nominee said of Trump's recent conversion on the issue. "He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie.”

“The birther lie was a very hurtful one," she said.

Trump tried to turn the tables back on Clinton, saying she had treated the president with "terrible disrespect" during the 2008 campaign.

“When you try to act holier than though, it really doesn’t work.”

Patti Solis Doyle, who served for a time as Clinton's campaign manager, was repeatedly invoked by Trump. He said she'd recently suggested in a CNN interview that their campaign had raised questions about Obama's birthplace.

Writing on Twitter after the debate exchange, Solis Doyle said that neither Clinton "nor her campaign started the birther conspiracy or trafficked in it. Period."

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