There are folks in our community, in our neighborhoods, in our families, in our country that

wanted to believe that Barack Obama, because he was a black man, was other.

He was outside of us.

And so anything that would confirm that and satisfy that itch that you had

that you otherwise couldn't reconcile,

you latched onto like a bitch

and you just wouldn't let it go.

And that's why it stuck.

And I remember a conversation I had with Donald Trump

in 2013.

We met in his office and he wanted to do some things. And I said, well, look,

why don't you do an op-ed on the economy? You're a businessman. Let's do an op-ed on the economy.

You talk about how you would shape the economy and da-da-da-da-da-da. He wouldn't even,

this wasn't even presidential aspiration stuff.

None of that conversation was in play.

This was just his wanting to figure out how he could, you know, connect narratively to what was

going on in the country.

And I told him, I said, but the one thing you have to do in order for that to work is

you have to drop this birtherism shit because it doesn't work. It's just not, it's first off,

it's racist, second off it's not true. And I went through the laundry list of things. He said,

yeah, yeah, you know, that kind of makes sense. A number of people have been telling me that. And yeah, I really just want to think I wouldn't focus on the economy.

I'm on the train home bill.

...