Barack Obama jokes he was 'born in Kenya' in veiled swipe at Donald Trump
President Trump was among those who pushed the 'birther' conspiracy theory and perpetually questioned whether Obama was a US citizen
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Your support makes all the difference.Barack Obama might have been born in the 50th state of the US but this did little to stop the torrent of conspiracy theories claiming he was not a natural-born American citizen and it was therefore unconstitutional for him to be President.
Obama has now poked fun at the storm of theories, which were of course pushed by President Donald Trump, by quipping that he was born in Kenya.
The former president, who left the White House in January, made the gag while taking to the stage at the Obama Foundation’s first global summit in Chicago on Tuesday.
“The reason I’m so excited to see you all here today in part is because this is where I started,” Mr Obama, who was a community organiser in Chicago in the 1980s, said.
“This isn’t where I was born, I was born in Kenya,” he said prompting laughter before quickly adding, “That’s a joke.”
It is worth noting Obama had a years-long feud and fraught relationship with his successor Mr Trump. During Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency, multiple theories emerged falsely claiming he was not a natural-born American US citizen and was in fact born in Kenya.
Mr Trump was among those who pushed the “birther” conspiracy theory and consistently questioned former President Obama’s birthplace of Hawaii. The billionaire property developer did not publicly admit Obama was born in America until September 2016 after perpetuating the "birther" conspiracy for around half a decade.
This is by no means the first time Obama has mocked President Trump and the conspiracy about his place of birth. He infamously relished in humiliating Mr Trump at a White House Correspondents' Dinner back in 2011.
Obama joked: ”No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald”.
“And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
The dinner took place just days after Mr Obama released his long-form birth certificate - a document Mr Trump then claimed did not exist.
Obama also went so far as to release his "official birth video" during the event and it actually ended up being a clip from Disney film The Lion King.
Obama was reported to have banned selfies with him or his wife Michelle at the recent Obama Foundation summit.
"It may seem trivial, but it's not," he said. "I say this because ... one of the weird things about becoming president is I found that people were no longer looking me in the eye and shaking my hand."
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