Obama to Winfrey: ‘I was there ... I knew I had been born’

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Updated: April 28, 2011 1:27AM

One of the first things Oprah Winfrey asked President Obama about when they taped her talk show Wednesday was his release earlier Wednesday of his long-form birth certificate to satisfy the “birther” skeptics who have argued for years his standard Hawaii birth certificate was a hoax.

“Why did you wait so long,” Winfrey asked.

Though he initially had hoped the issue would pass, he found in recent weeks that 2 1/2 years after the rumors started, they were still dominating the national conversation to the exclusion of issues he thinks are more important, he said.

“Two weeks ago, a huge debate was initiated around where our budget needs to go,” Obama told Winfrey. “We’ve got some serious decisions to make about how do we bring our deficit down and our debt down but do it in a way that preserves what makes America great: Our investments in education; our investments in infrastructure; our investments in basic research; making sure that we’ve got a strong safety net for our seniors.

“And during the course of this major debate where I gave a big speech and the Republicans voted on their proposal, the biggest news was this birth certificate thing.”

“The birth certificate,” Winfrey agreed.

“And so, at that point I said to my team, look, even though this is not usually what the State of Hawaii does. Even though the Republican Governor of Hawaii, the Democratic Governors of Hawaii, all the various officials had confirmed that I was born here, let’s ask them for a special dispensation where they will go ahead and provide us with the original to see if we can put this to rest,” Obama said.

“We can’t be distracted by sideshows and, as I said at my press conference, carnival barkers who are going around trying to get attention instead of actually solving the problems.”

The audience erupted in applause.

Obama joked that he remembered being born in Hawaii.

“Can I just say? I was there, so I knew ... that ... I knew I had been born. I remembered it.’’

As the audience laughed, Winfrey said, “Of course you did.”

The rest of Winfrey’s interview with Obama has been embargoed until the show airs Monday.