One certificate of live birth and an aborted presidential campaign later, Donald Trump continues to beat the birther drum. But this time, the news media seems less interested in his conspiracy theories.
Appearing on CNN Tuesday, Trump got in a heated exchange with Wolf Blitzer after he persisted in questioning the authenticity of the long-form birth certificate that President Barack Obama released in 2011. The birther movement, of which Trump is probably the most high-profile proponent, maintains that the president was born in Kenya, not Hawaii, making him ineligible to serve in the White House.
Blitzer suggested that given the documented evidence that Obama was born on U.S. soil, including birth announcements that appeared in two newspapers in Hawaii, Trump was “beginning to sound a little ridiculous.”
Trump hit back by telling the CNN host, “I think you sound ridiculous" and suggesting that Blitzer's liberal bias was leading to low ratings.
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Trump's relentless claims about the president's birth have created awkwardness for Mitt Romney. The Republican presidential candidate participated in a Las Vegas fundraiser hosted by Trump on Tuesday, when he also hit the 1,144-delegate threshold he needed to win his party's nomination. But news coverage of Trump's remarks distracted from coverage of Romney's triumph.
On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow chastised Romney for going forward with the Trump fundraiser and for not publicly distancing himself from the real estate tycoon's views.
"If you are Mitt Romney, apparently you really think this is the kind of country where this will earn you votes," Maddow said. "So you do the Donald Trump fundraiser…and you come up with some way to look at yourself in the mirror and hope that history forgives you."
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Romney has not questioned Obama's birthplace, but has refused to repudiate Trump's views — treating them as a difference of opinion.
"You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in," Romney told reporters Monday. "But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."
Though Maddow's evisceration is less surprising, coming as it does on a liberal-leaning network, Trump has not been immune to criticism from those on the right.
On Sunday, conservative commentator George Will called Trump a “bloviating ignoramus" on ABC's "The Week."
Guess he's not a fan of "The Apprentice."