FACT CHECK: Does This Video Show Obama Saying He Wasn’t Born In The US?
A video shared on Facebook purportedly shows former President Barack Obama saying he wasn’t born in the U.S.
Verdict: False
The footage, which is from a 2009 event in Turkey, has been digitally manipulated. Obama didn’t claim to have been born outside the U.S. during the event.
Fact Check:
In June 2008, Obama’s campaign released a copy of his birth certificate, which showed he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in response to baseless rumors regarding his birthplace and eligibility to run for president, BBC News reported. Despite the release of his birth certificate, Obama has continued to be the subject of misinformation related to his birth place, according to the outlet.
Now, a video on Facebook claims to show, “Obama telling a group he wasn’t born in America.” (RELATED: Viral Image Claims To Show Barack Obama’s Kenyan Birth Certificate)
“Well, first of all, uh, it’s true that I’m not American,” he seemingly says while footage cuts to new angles. “I was not born in Hawaii. I wasn’t born in the United States of America. I came from Kenya, and so I think people saw my election as, uh, as proof- as testimony that our society has become more and more naive.”
The video, however, appears to have been edited to make it seem as though Obama said he was not born in the U.S., when in reality he didn’t. The footage comes from an April 2009 event in Istanbul, Turkey, where Obama spoke to students at Istanbul’s Tophane Cultural Center. The Obama White House posted a video of the entire discussion on YouTube with the title, “The President Talks with Students in Turkey.” A review of the 45-minute video and its transcript, published by the White House, showed no instances of Obama claiming he’s not an American citizen.
Check Your Fact found the video in the Facebook post was first published in February 2010 by the YouTube channel ObamaSnippetsDotCom, which creates videos combining clips from Obama’s speeches to make it seem like he said something. At the beginning of the video, a “spoof” disclaimer makes clear the video was created as satire.
The channel’s “About” page describes itself as: “It’s not political. It’s just for fun. This is not an “Anti-Obama” site. This is not a “Pro-Obama” site.”
While ObamaSnippetsDotCom clearly states the satirical intention of the 2010 video, social media users have been sharing the decade-old video recently, seemingly believing it is genuine.
