President Obama and Oprah came together Wednesday afternoon to discuss Obama’s 11th hour decision to release his official longform birth certificate. “When it first came up, were you thinking, I hope I was born here?” Winfrey asked. “Two weeks ago a huge debate was initiated about where our budget needs to go,” he told Winfrey. “During the course of this major debate where I gave a big speech and the Republicans voted on their proposal, the biggest news was this birth certificate thing.”
“I said to my team, look, even though this is not usually what the state of Hawaii does…Even though the Republican governor of Hawaii, the Democratic governors of Hawaii, all the various officials had confirmed that I was born here, let’s ask them for a special dispensation where they will go ahead and provide us with the original to see if we can put this to rest,” he said. “We can’t be distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers going around, trying to get attention.” Meanwhile Republican candidate Mitt Romney tweeted, “What President Obama should really be releasing is a jobs plan.” The full interview will air May 2.
President Obama tells Oprah why he revealed his birth certificate, what took him so long [NYDN]
