Donald Trump finally admitted Friday that he now believes President Barack Obama was born in America, after the GOP nominee refused earlier this week to say where he stands on the issue.
Trump's sharp shift comes after his campaign suggested Thursday night it was the GOP nominee himself who helped to "bring this ugly incident to its conclusion" by prodding the president to release his birth certificate in 2011.
But Trump's trail of tweets since 2011 shows he wasn't willing to let his "birther" beliefs and the conspiracy theories spawned from the movement die down even after that birth certificate was made public.
Trump resurrected the issue in early 2012 when he tweeted: "Made in America?" and linked to a story on the conservative site WorldNetDaily about Obama's long-form birth certificate — which shows he was born in Hawaii — being questioned in a New Jersey court.
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He again raised his suspicions in the months ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
In August 2012, Trump doubled down, tweeting that an "extremely credible source" called his office and said Obama's "birth certificate is a fraud."
He also tweeted about conspiracies that Obama's birth certificate was a "computer generated forgery" and that a state health director who verified the document "died in a plane crash" while "all others lived." (Trump was referring to Hawaii health official Loretta Fuddy.)
The following year, Trump wasn't done congratulating himself about Obama releasing his birth certificate, tweeting in June 2014 that "Hillary couldn't, McCain couldn't."
But then, he also called on internet hackers to find Obama's college records to "check 'place of birth.'"