feed this paranoid conspiracy. and i don't think this will put it to rest because there always is a lunatic fringe frankly in any party -- >> you don't think donald trump was catching on, though? had sort of caught on to something by raising this? >> oh, sure. among the haters. but it was only helping obama, i've got to tell you. if you believe that president obama wasn't born in america, you're not really likely to vote for him anyway. and what this did do i think is delegitimize republicans. it put republicans on the spot. then they would have to answer. do you believe the cookooks? and frankly many responsible republicans did disavow the birther movement. but many didn't. newt gingrich, for goodness sake, said the president had a kenyan anti-colonial world view. mike huckabee said that the president grew up in kenya, which is nonsense. he never even visited kenya until he was 20 years old. so there were serious mainstream republicans who were feeding this. why? because they want to delegitimize this president. they don't want to fight him on