Donald Trump's dizzying history of birtherism, in just 3 minutes

Donald Trump refuses to admit that President Obama was born in the United States.
(Image credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

"We all agree: He was born, okay."

That's about as generous as Donald Trump is willing to get about the circumstances surrounding President Barack Obama's American citizenship. This week, the issue of Trump's birtherism has resurfaced, as he refused Thursday night to say outright that he knows Obama was born in the U.S. — though his campaign subsequently released a statement confirming that fact, and Trump's knowledge of it. (Obama was born in Hawaii, as proven by his publicly available long-form birth certificate, which he released in 2011.)

Trump was an early, adamant promoter of the birther theory — and he's somehow managed to give the issue legs through the 2016 election, one where Obama isn't even on the ballot. Below, a video summary of Trump's multi-year campaign of doubt against Obama's heritage, courtesy of Media Matters. Kimberly Alters

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Kimberly Alters is the news editor at TheWeek.com. She is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.