Clinton campaign: Trump's actions on Obama birth issue 'disgraceful'

WASHINGTON: U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign on Friday blasted Republican rival Donald Trump's statement acknowledging that President Barack Obama was born in the United States after years of questioning the president's citizenship.

"Trump’s actions today were disgraceful," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said. "After five years of pushing a racist conspiracy theory into the mainstream, it was appalling to watch Trump appoint himself the judge of whether the President of the United States is American."

Trump had for years promoted the birther movement against Obama, who was born in Hawaii to an American mother and a Kenyan father. In 2012, The New York businessman wrote on Twitter that the president's birth certificate was "a fraud."

The birther conspiracies, which cast doubt over whether Obama is legally able to be president, incense black Americans whose votes Trump has been trying to court.

Clinton demanded Trump apologize to the president for having helped spread the birther idea and said Trump had tried to "delegitimize our first black president."

"His campaign was founded on this outrageous lie. There is no erasing it in history," Clinton said in an address to the Black Women's Association in Washington.