--- description: Did Hillary Clinton spread the rumor that President Obama was not born in the U.S.? No, she did not. title: This Is How the Whole Birther Thing Actually Started image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1f5bad11fed6036b/6988a6685f570fbcebb228d0/trump2.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [politics](/tag/politics/) ## politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # This Is How the Whole Birther Thing Actually Started  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 16, 2016 5:02 PM CUT  Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at Laconia Middle School Sept. 15, 2016 in Laconia, N.H. Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks at Laconia Middle School Sept. 15, 2016 in Laconia, N.H.Darren McCollester—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Sep 16, 2016 5:02 PM CUT On Friday, an old conspiracy theory about President Obama got new legs: as Obama [reiterated](http://time.com/4497103/president-obama-im-pretty-confident-about-where-i-was-born/ "undefined") that he was “pretty confident about where \[he\] was born,” Donald Trump—who long [questioned](https://twitter.com/CarrieNBCNews/status/776807126832390144 "undefined") the President’s place of birth—made a [statement](http://time.com/4496913/donald-trump-barack-obama-birther/ "undefined") walking back that position. “President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Trump said. But, Thursday night, his campaign also issued a [statement](http://time.com/4496463/trump-obama-born-birther-hawaii-us/?xid=homepage "undefined") tracing the rumor to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. As [PolitiFact](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/23/donald-trump/hillary-clinton-obama-birther-fact-check/ "undefined") and [Fact-check.org](http://www.factcheck.org/2015/07/was-hillary-clinton-the-original-birther/ "undefined") both explain, there is absolutely no evidence that Clinton or her campaign were the source of the idea, though it did spread among some of her supporters during the 2008 primary contest between Clinton and Obama—which would only make sense, in terms of the timing of someone questioning whether someone were qualified for the presidency. And as for Clinton herself, she [said](http://time.com/4496952/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-birtherism/ "undefined") on Friday that Trump’s campaign for the White House was “founded” on the “outrageous lie” that Obama’s place of birth was ever in question, and [called out ](https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/776621762545156096?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc^tfw "undefined")the racism of the rumor. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter "undefined") So where did the idea actually come from? There’s no definite answer to that question, as the 2008 iteration of the idea was first circulated, according to [a Politico history](http://www.politico.com/story/2011/04/birtherism-where-it-all-began-053563?paginate=false "undefined") of the theory, by anonymous email. But, as the primary season came to an end, it got a publicity boost from an ironic source: the attempt by the campaign to quash rumors led some people who might have previously ignored them to wonder what was going on. In 2008, TIME [explained](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1813978,00.html "undefined") how that happened: --- > “” --- Even after Obama won the election, the idea did not go away. Years later, in 2011, Donald Trump, then toying with a 2012 run for the White House, was[ largely responsible ](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2065235,00.html "undefined")for bringing it back into the news. But the cached version of that original 2008 Obama campaign response, the fact-check website fightthesmears.com, can [still](https://web.archive.org/web/20080613044110/http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/ "undefined") be found online. “Senator Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961, after it became a state on August 21st, 1959,” the website states. And, of course, it links to the documents that prove so—not that anyone should need to see them anymore. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4496792/birther-rumor-started/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4496792/birther-rumor-started/"},"headline":"This Is How the Whole Birther Thing Actually Started","datePublished":"2016-09-16T17:02:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:39:03.444Z","description":"Did Hillary Clinton spread the rumor that President Obama was not born in the U.S.? 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