Trump: 'Very proud of myself'

Real estate mogul and possible Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed credit Wednesday for President Obama's decision to release his long-form birth certificate.

Trump, speaking in the key GOP primary state of New Hampshire, said he hoped the release of Obama's birth certificate Wednesday morning, authorized by the White House, would put to rest questions about the president's birthplace.

"Today I am very proud of myself, because I've accomplished something that nobody else was able to accomplish," Trump said after landing in the Granite State.

Trump expressed some lingering skepticism of the birth certificate's veracity, saying he wants to examine it, but said he expected to be able to move on.

"I hope that it's true so we can get on to much more important matters. So the press can stop asking me questions," he said. "I am really honored to have played such a big role in hopefully getting rid of this issue."

Obama released his "long-form" birth certificate on Wednesday after formally requesting its release from the government of Hawaii earlier this month. The White House said Obama made the request to put to rest the conspiracy theory, particularly since birthers had complained that only the "short-term" certificate had been released by Obama when he was running for president in 2008.

Trump's made waves in his pursuit of a possible run for president by openly questioning the veracity of Obama's birth certificate.

The host of NBC's "The Apprentice" said he had sent investigators to Hawaii to research Obama's birthplace, a move that had revived conspiracy theories about the president's birth certificate, and prompted renewed questions of GOP leaders on where they stood on the "birther" issue.

Most Republicans, including a number of those in the running for the party's presidential nomination, have said they believe Obama was born in the U.S. Others have been a bit more cagey, saying they take Obama at his word.

The underpinning of the "birther" conspiracy holds that, if Obama were born outside the United States, he would be constitutionally ineligible to serve as president, since only natural-born citizens of the U.S. are eligible to hold the office.