Real estate mogul Donald Trump suggested in an interview on Monday that President Barack Obama had been a poor
student who did not deserve to be admitted to the Ivy League universities he attended.
Mr Trump, who is mulling a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, offered no proof for his claim but said he would continue to press the matter as he has the legitimacy of the president's birth certificate.
"I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Mr Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."
Mr Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York in 1983 with a degree in political science after transferring from Occidental College in California. He went on to Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude 1991 and was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
Mr Obama's 2008 campaign did not release his college transcripts, and in his bestselling memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Mr Obama indicated he hadn't always been an academic star. Mr Trump told the AP that Mr Obama's refusal to release his college grades were part of a pattern of concealing information about himself.
"I have friends who have smart sons with great marks, great boards, great everything and they can't get into Harvard," Mr Trump said. "We don't know a thing about this guy. There are a lot of questions that are unanswered about our president."
Katie Hogan, a spokeswoman for Mr Obama's re-election campaign, declined to comment.
Mr Trump has shaped himself as an ultraconservative candidate, reversing some positions he once held. He now would make abortion illegal, opposes gay marriage and gun control. He advocates repeal of Mr Obama's health care overhaul that became law last year. He wants to cut foreign aid, is highly critical of China's trade and monetary policies and wants to end the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But he has got the most political traction by latching onto the "birther" movement: those who believe claims initiated by the far-right that Mr Obama was born outside the United States – despite the release of official birth records in Hawaii and other evidence. The U.S. Constitution requires that presidential candidates be "natural-born" U.S. citizens.
Of late, Mr Trump has appeared in interviews on all the major American cable television networks, pushing relentlessly his message that Mr Obama needs to prove he was born in the United States. He points to his rising poll numbers as proof that Americans like what he is saying on that deeply divisive issue.
"I have more people that are excited about the fact that I reinvigorated this whole issue," Mr Trump said, adding "the last guy (Obama) wants to run against is Donald Trump."
Mr Trump is scheduled to travel to the early primary states of New Hampshire and Nevada this week and said he will make a final decision about a presidential bid by June.
The Donald’s fortunes rise as he voices Obama 'birther' suspicions
By Rachel Ray, Washington
Donald Trump was described in the media as 'Poor Donald' almost exactly two years ago as the ratings for his show 'The Celebrity Apprentice' sank concurrently with his real estate empire.
By September 2010, there was no improvement- the show failed to capture even five million viewers against rerun competition.
But since February, ratings have steadily climbed- coinciding with The Donald’s “birther” suspicions about the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate.
By the end of March, Mr Trump flat out told Fox News he was "really concerned" about Obama's citizenship, adding "I'm starting to wonder myself whether or not [Obama] was born in this country."
And in the April 4th week ratings analysis, The Celebrity Apprentice numbers had jumped 15 percent in the adult 18-49 group and 22 percent in total viewers since the same time in 2010.
GOP wise man Karl Rove went on Fox too on Saturday to denounce Trump’s birther talk and label him a “joke” candidate. The Donald may be bad news for the Republicans but things are looking up at NBC.
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