title:  WATCH: Trump Campaign Manager REFUSES To Answer This Simple Birther Question
text: On Sunday, Donald Trump s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway appeared on NBC s Meet the Press. During her appearance, she was grilled about Trump s former birther stance.Trump recently denounced his birther views after weeks of being hounded by the press. Since then, the Trump campaign has tried to move past the matter. Given that Trump was one of the key propagators of the conspiracy theory, they are not going to be able to do that anytime soon.The show s host, Chuck Todd, asked Conway what made Trump come to the conclusion that President Obama was in fact born in the United States. It s a fairly straightforward question that Conway did not want to answer. You ll have to ask him that. That s a personal decision,  Conway replied.Conway then alleged that it was Hillary Clinton s aides were the ones that started the birther conspiracy. This stems from the fact that several Clinton supporters spread an anonymous chainmail around that pushed the birther conspiracy. However, no one actually knows where the origins of that email, or the conspiracy itself came from. Who cares about the Clinton incident?  Todd shot back.  Donald Trump for five years perpetuated this. This has been arguably part of his political identity for the last five years  forget the Clinton incident for a minute, why did he perpetuate it for five years? Conway then said that  It makes a huge difference who started this. We were reminding people where this started. It was used as a smear against Sen. Obama by Clinton campaign associates   and by the way, not a bunch of summer interns who just got it all wrong and were a little bit too ambitious. I understand why you re deflecting,  Todd responds.  You are deflecting. This was five years of his political identity. It s impossible to know who actually started the birther conspiracy. That s why Conway and other Republicans have begun using that talking point during interviews. While actually knowing who came up with conspiracy would be interesting for historical reasons, that information will probably never come to light. Trump and his campaign are desperate to sidestep the issue because they know that it is a major embarrassment.Propagating the conspiracy was also Trump s first major step into the political arena. The people who believe in it constitute Trump s base. Every time he speaks out against it, he is at risk of alienating the base.You can watch the interview below.Featured image from video screenshot