Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said over the weekend that reporters who continued to question Donald Trump's history of birtherism were "slandering" the candidate.
During a Sunday interview on NBC's Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Conway how Donald Trump finally came to the conclusion "that the president was born in the United States."
"You'll have to ask him that," Conway replied with a smile. "That's a personal decision."
"Associates of the Clinton campaign started this birtherism question in 2007," she opined.
"Who cares about the Clinton incident?" Todd pressed. "Donald Trump for five years perpetuated this. This has been arguably part of his political identity for the last five years... forget the Clinton incident for a minute, why did he perpetuate it for five years?"
Conway argued that "it makes a huge difference who started this."
"We were reminding people where this started," she quipped. "It was used as a smear against Sen. Obama by Clinton campaign associates -- and by the way, not a bunch of summer interns who just got it all wrong and were a little bit too ambitious."
Todd pointed out that Trump had continued to push the birther falsehood "when he was running for president."
"Let's move on to the issues people care about," Conway said, deflecting the question. "I'm looking at NBC's poll this morning, Chuck, and I don't see this issue anywhere in the top 40."
"I understand why you're deflecting," Todd replied. "You are deflecting. This was five years of his political identity."
"People are supposed to be covering our candidate," Conway complained. "Not slandering him consistently on social media."
