Donald Trump continued to defend his claims that President Obama's birth certificate is illegitimate during a testy interview with CNN on Tuesday afternoon, hours before a scheduled fundraiser with Mitt Romney.
Appearing after a report calling into question the legitimacy of the "birther" movement's claims, the billionaire businessman accused CNN of providing an "inappropriate introduction" that was "very dishonest" and "almost as if President Obama wrote it."
"Obama does not like the issue of where he was born — his own publisher, as you know, using his words that he was born in Kenya and grew up in Indonesia," Trump continued.
The real estate mogul and reality television show host went on to accuse CNN's Wolf Blitzer of succumbing to "reverse psychology" by Obama campaign members, whom Trump believes are secretly fearful of his attempts to shine a light on the president's birth certificate.
"He doesn't like it because it's hitting very close to home ... a lot of people don't agree with that birth certificate. A lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate," Trump said.
Blitzer pressed Trump to name credible sources who doubt the authenticity of Obama's birth certificate, noting the Republican governor of Hawaii and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had both said they believed Obama was born in the United States.
"I don't give names," Trump said.
When Blitzer argued that he was looking conspiratorial and "starting to sound ridiculous," Trump returned in kind.
"I think you sound ridiculous," he said.
Trump also swiped at CNN's ratings on multiple occasions, arguing of his "birthed" claims, "you know and I know it and so do a lot of your viewers ... though you don't have a lot of viewers."
"If you reported accurately, you'd probably be getting better ratings than you're getting, which are pretty small," Trump added.
Trump went on to say that he would not discuss the issue with Romney at their fundraising event later Tuesday afternoon, saying the presidential candidate instead preferred to focus on jobs and the economy.
“What I speak to Mitt Romney about is jobs. What I speak to Mitt Romney
about is China … what I speak to him about is OPEC. I don’t speak to him
about this. You bring it up because you feel it’s probably going to get
a few more people watching your station which, unfortunately, they’re
not doing," Trump said.
After the appearance, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina posted a tweet looking to link Trump to Romney.
"Two words define Mitt Romney today: Donald Trump," Messina wrote.
