All of the nations major Media Outlets were breathlessly gathered awaiting the candidates comments. At 11 03 a. M. An hour after the event was supposed to begin, out walked trump, surrounded by a group of veterans who proveeded to take the microphone in terms praising mr. Trumps commitment to the military. Some 90 minutes after the start of nonstop live coverage by all of the cable nets we finally got to hear more about what is known now as the birther issue. Watch. Hillary clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what i mean. President barack obama was born in the United States period. Now we all want to get back to making america strong and great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. As short as this was, theres a lot to unpack from it. Including reactions from republicans, democrats and the white house, along with trumps history on this issue and that of mrs. Clinton. And we have a powerful lineup for you this evening, including governor Mike Huckabee bill bennett, Mark Mckinnon and mark halprin. But first we go to Trace Gallagher in the west coast newsroom to walk us through how we got to this moment. Trace . From our research it appears that donald trump first dipped his toe in the birther issue in 2011 when he was considering running for president in 2012. He told cpac quote our current president came out of nowhere. The people who went to school with him, they never saw him. They dont know who he is. Its crazy. A month later he told bill oreilly that president obama doesnt have a birth certificate and later told nbc news that he was sending a team of investigators to hawaii to investigate. In april of 2011 president obama who had already released a short form birth certificate in 2008 decided to release the long form saying it was time to put the issue to rest. And even though the Trump Campaign is now taking credit for president obama releasing his long form in 2011 donald trump continued for years to claim that obama was not a u. S. Citizen. As late as the summer of 2015 trump said he didnt know if obama was born in the u. S. The Trump Campaign also blames Hillary Clinton for raising the birther issue in the first place during her 2008 campaign, referring to this interview on 60 minutes when asked if she thought barack obama was muslim. Watch. You said you take senator obama at his word that hes a muslim. No. You dont believe hes a muslim . No. There is nothing to base that on as far as i know. Even though fact check organizations say clinton didnt start the birther issue, they acknowledge that her 60 minutes interview fanned the flames. And her sunters in 2008 did propagate it. Today Hillary Clinton said this. For five years he has led the Birther Movement to delegitimize our first black president. His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. And some political analysts believe its too late for trump to talk his way out of birtherism a washington postop ed reads in part quote, while avoiding accountability for the act of feeding the conspiracy in the first place and while continuing to wink at the deplorables in his base by signaling that their birtherism is not just perfectly acceptable but admirable. So despite saying president obama was born in the u. S. Period the story continues. Megyn. Trace, thank you. In the meantime mrs. Clinton today says there is no erasing the birther issue for donald trump even if he says its behind him. Within a couple of hours of her remarks, the Congressional Black Caucus came out to sunt her argument. Watch this. This is a disgusting day. Donald trump is a disgusting fraud. Weve had enough and were not going to take it anymore. We will not elect a cheep bigot. One of the things that we all are used to in this business is dog whistles. But the thing that were not used to and im finding it very difficult to get used to are the howls of wolves. Joining me now to respond, donald trump supporter and Fox News Contributor governor Mike Huckabee. Great to see you. Great to be here. Its fascinating to watch this unfold today because our folks, our friends on the the other Networks Said no way did he put this to bed today and said every statement he said today was a lie. Your thoughts. Well first of all, i think the media got just totally bamboozled and they hate it. They got punked. They totally got punked and they cant stand it. Theyre going to use all of the resources they have to do what they were going to do anyway. If dump said i love the media, theyre great and im going to apologize to everyone starting with the new york phone book do you think theyre going to treat him differently . Theyre irritated because he played it unsaying hes going to be a presser, it doesnt presser it was three minutes and he left and didnt take the media with him. But they were irritated with him. But then they also were questioning the accuracy of what he said. But theyre always irritated at him. Lets keep in mind it was this week that the media had the lowest approval numbers in the history of polling. But what about the claims that he made that she started it but he finished it. We happen to have some information about Hillary Clinton that youre not going to hear on some of the other networks and were going to get to that in a moment. Its not necessarily clear that she has nothing to do with it as her defenders are claiming but he didnt quote start it. And donald trump was very much the person hold the flag on this one, was he not . I dont know that he started it. There were a lot of things out there. I remember bill clinton saying im not saying trump started it but he held the flag on it. And she accused him of founding his campaign on it. He did make a huge issue out of this in 201 and 2012. At that time donald trump was not a politician not a political candidate. Hillary clinton and bill clinton, they both were. I have you here as a trump surrogate. Im going to get to Richard Fowler next after you. Trump made a huge issue after this. And even after he claims he put it to bed hen he got barack obama to release the long form birth certificate proving he was born in hawaii he kept it up. We have all of the tweets in 2012 where he keeps going on and on. September 2012 obama birth certificate is a fake. August 2012 sources call called my office telling me Barack Obamas birth certificate is a fraud. All the way to january of this year. Im not going to deny that donald trump made a lot of questions about his birth certificate. But, you know, hearres a question. Maybe you can raise it to richard because richard is going to be foaming at the mouth. I like richard. Hes a friend. But let me ask you something. When you watch the black caucus as i did they repeatedly said donald trump is a bill government hes a racist hes been a racist all of his life. What evidence is that . Theres none. They believe the attempted delegitimize the first black president is in itself bigoted and racist. If they can prove what he was saying is because he was black then theyve goat an point. The suggestion is that he was born in kenya, not born in america. Thats where they bring the race . To say that hes a racist and a bigot, thats nonsense. Theres an old rule all is fair in love and war and politics. This is not all that unusual. When i hear the people who are against donald trump, whether its hillary or the caucus or whoever it is, or the media, but then again i repeat myself it sounds like theyre sucking from the same helium balloon because they all have the same shrill voice and say the exact same words, as if theyre reading a script. Got to go. Great to see you. While the clinton camp has spent 24 hours attacking trump on this issue, that strategy does have some risk. You would not know it to watch some of the other channels today but were going to get to this in a minute. This morning mrs. Clinton treated out president obamas successor cannot be the one who led the Birther Movement. And that got the response from the former Washington Bureau chief who wrote, so why did your man Sid Blumenthal spread the obama Birther Movement to me in 2008 asking us to investigate. Remember . Joining me now, sean yr fellow at the new leaders council, Richard Fowler. How about that richard. The former head of the news service saying her top guy, Sid Blumenthal came to him and said he wasnt born here. Go investigate it. To use your words breaking tonight. Weve learned something new that weve known for seven years. President barack obama is an american. Its astonishing. Its eye popping. Its shocking. We know that. Donald trump has come to terms with that which well talk about in a second. But im starting with you as to whether hillary is as squeaky clean on this as she would have us believe. Politico released a they didnt cover Sid Blumenthal. What we found in the report was that there was some folks the name of the group is called pew puma. They were democrats. They were not going to get in line and they posted a picture of the president in muslim gashrb. Sid blumenthal is connected to Hillary Clinton. Thats her top aid. Her guy. Her righthand man. But this former reporter who i dont know this has not been fact checked. Nobody knows who this guy is. Clearly theyre former that says something about it him, right . No it doesnt. I take this with a grain of salt. At the end of the day we know the president is born in america. Weve known for the past seven years that donald trump has pushed this crazy Conspiracy Theory to benefit himself and his gold plated new hotel down the street from the studio. You heard Mike Huckabee say you cannot come out and denounce the man as a bigot based on the birtherism weve seen. Well heres the thing. If donald trump is trying to get the africanamerican vote which right now he habz 5 , hes going hes at 25 in South Carolina for the record. Democrats are not going to win South Carolina regardless. He can have that. Right . The truth of the matter ild trump to get the africanamerican vote what he should have done is go out and apologize to the American People for perpetuating this fraud and he did not. He pimped the media beyond belief right . And hes not going to get black voters. Hes saying to black people i really dont care about you even though i want you to quote unquote give me a chance. Im going to push the rhetoric not talking about solutions for your community. Africanamericans need to go out and not necessarily vote for Hillary Clinton but you should at least vote against donald trump. And Hillary Clintons campaign has got to be focused on turning out black voters. Theyre paying attention. Got to be. Richard, great to see you. Donald trump cuts into clintons lead in another key state and chris is next on what were see in the numbers before bill bennett joins us on what to expect next 37 but the media circuit that broke out when word got out that Hillary Clinton had been hill. Mark halprin is taking a special appearance tonight on the kelly file. I have the behind the scenes scoop just ahead. This is what they have to do. They have to sit here all day just in case a doctor comes out with some news. 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Joining me now were chris stier walt. Here goes michigan a state that is expected to vote democratic that typically votes democrat and its down to three now. Something huge happened in the past seven days naps the bottom line. Just one week ago she was in a great position seven days later shes got to be crying in her soup. Well we have not an unprecedented i would say it would be an unprecedented collapse for Hillary Clinton east poll numbers except for the fact shes done it before. If you look at her trajectory line over the arc of the this election he goes along and then boom and she hits these speed bumps and falls apart. What did she do . Was it basket of deplorables, was it the collapse at the ceremony. We see a slight strengthening in trumps numbers, hes up in michigan and ohio. A couple fou points here and there. But what you see that makes the race closer is shes falling apart. And i would say this has to do with the Health Problems and the lying about the Health Problems and then before that you had this nation of news about emails but also about funny business with the Clinton Foundation. So shes had a drum beat of negative stories and things that really reinforce the things that people like least about her and her husband and their family. Trump has rebounded in ohio and how. Hes right there in florida as well. North carolina has tightened significantly. If he gets those three, does he need pennsylvania . Does he need virginia . Colorado is tightening too. If he cant have virginia and colorado he will need pennsylvania or Something Else big. Wed like at nevada iowa and minnesota. Hes winning in iowa by a lot right now. Iowa looks good for him. Massive white population and a lot of older white voters without college degrees. This is the trump demographic that works well for him. There are a lot of those voters in michigan. Thats why the map could look different. But i would point you to this. When we look at these numbers, probably the most striking thing is how few people, relatively speaking are expressing a preference for these candidates. Four years ago at this point when our fox news poll was in the field we found 10 of people either had no opinion or were voting for a minor party candidate. Its doubled that this time around. One in five voters does not express support for either of the two major party candidates. That means theres still a lot of snap left in the line here and its going to be exciting. What makes you think before i let you go that theyre going to vote at all . This is you asked the perfect question. We have no idea whether people who say they cant be bothered to choose between the chicken entree or the fish entree whether theyre going to order at all or leave the banquet hall hungry. Theyre going to hit the martinis. Bill bennett, former secretary of education. Great to see you. Martinis my leadin. You dont like the chicken or the fish. Was it bath basket full of deplorables, was it the collapse at 9 11. In seven days weve had a complete reversal in the race. I think the onion skin started to come off, the peeling started to come off, we started to see the real hillary. And yeah it was the deplorables. By the way, i am ph. D. Plorable leading a group of ph. D. S for trump. Any way, that didnt help. And then of course the email stuff. Everything chris mentioned. But another factor, colin powell a long time friend of the clintons ripped into her, talking about her unbridled ambition her greed, i wont mention the bimbos running around the house, but the fact the she is not a transformational figure. She sounded very shrill and very angry talking about trump and zen phobic homophobic racist and so on. This is the angry mrs. Clinton that people find so unattractive. So that then the collapse. Then the collapse. Angry but also she was accused of sounding quite elitist in those comments. Yes, no question. I realize she tried to quantify it saying not all Trump Supporters but at least half of them. If youre a trump supporter you assume shes putting you in that half and its aoffense i. Thats right. He was making mention of her wellesley degree and Yale Law School not a good idea particularly when youre putting down other people. Trump is constantly mentioning his wharton degree. He can get away with certain things and has been from the beginning. Let me ask you this. So if youre advising trump right now, you got 53 days left just do what do you say . Just do what