Hillary Clinton: Donald Trump ‘has led the birther movement’

With remarks Friday morning to Black Women’s Agenda Symposium, Hillary Clinton sought to keep alive the controversial long-standing claim by rival Donald Trump that President Barack Obama is foreign-born.

“There is no erasing it in history,” she said of Trump’s place in the so-called birther movement.

The Democratic presidential nominee’s comments in Washington, D.C., came after Trump’s campaign issued a statement via a spokesman Thursday night seeking to put to rest the scrutiny behind the Republican presidential candidate’s consistent refusal to acknowledge that Obama was born in the United States.

Trump’s senior communications adviser Jason Miller had credited the real estate mogul with being a “closer” by forcing the president to prove his birthplace.

“Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, Mr. Trump believes that President Obama was born in the United States,” Miller said.

Clinton said Trump is playing into bigotry and biases around the country.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe him the first time,” she said. “And we know who Donald is. For five years, he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president.”

The former secretary of state said Trump’s campaign was “founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history.”

Trump is due also in Washington, D.C., later Friday and is expected to speak at his namesake hotel.

Clinton is set to tape an interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” on which Trump appeared Thursday night.