Seth Meyers, who has repeatedly used his late-night show to criticize Donald Trump, blasted the Republican presidential nominee for fueling the birther movement on Monday.
Trump on Friday held a news conference during which he briefly acknowledged that President Obama was born in the United States—after years of being one of the most vocal proponents of the false conspiracy theory he was born elsewhere. Meyers took Trump to task during his “A Closer Look” segment, and chronicled five years of comments from Trump showing how he promoted the conspiracy theory.
During his remarks on Friday, Trump falsely accused rival Hillary Clinton and her 2008 presidential campaign for starting the movement, and claimed it was he who ended the controversy.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said at the tail end of a media event that ended up mostly promoting his new Trump International Hotel. He continued, “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Period.”
A flabbergasted Meyers played a video of Trump’s statement on his nightly show.
“‘Obama was born in the United States.’ Period? F–k you. Exclamation point,” Meyers shouted. “You don’t get to peddle racist rhetoric for five years and decide when it’s over. We decide when it’s over. And it’s certainly not over after a 30-second statement in the middle of a hotel commercial.”
He continued, “Obama is your No. 1 hit. Saying you got it from Hillary would be like saying Springsteen saying he only wrote ‘Born to Run’ because he heard Bon Jovi say it once.
“The bottom line is this: Trump built his career on a racist lie because he’s a racist and a liar, and instead of denouncing that lie, the GOP doubled down on it completely,” Meyers continued. “And now Trump is trying to trick people once again that he was never really a birther at all, and that it was Hillary Clinton that started it.”
Watch the clip above.
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Write to Mahita Gajanan at mahita.gajanan@time.com