WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama told jokes at the expense of U.S. real estate mogul Donald Trump on Saturday night, mocking his possible presidential ambitions in remarks at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
With Trump in the hotel ballroom audience of celebrities, politicians and journalists, Obama zeroed in on talk fueled by Trump that the president was not U.S.-born.
Obama on Wednesday released a longer version of his birth certificate to answer some Republicans including Trump who claim he was not native born and therefore ineligible to be president, and blasted “carnival barkers” who refuse to let the issue die.
Trump has seized on the issue while testing the waters for a possible 2012 run for the Republican presidential nomination. Obama, a Democrat, is running for re-election next year.
“Donald Trump is here tonight. And I know that he’s taken some flak lately. But no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than ‘The Donald,’“ Obama said, using Trump’s nickname.
“And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?” Obama added, drawing laughs and applause,
Roswell refers to an incident in the vicinity of Roswell, New Mexico, where, according to some theories, an object that crashed in 1947 was an extra-terrestrial spacecraft carrying alien occupants. Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur were rap stars whose deaths are the subject of continuing controversy
