“The Five” Co-Host on Obama Birth Certificate: Serious, Joking, or a Combination of Both?

“WE BELIEVE IT’S REAL”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Feb. 28, 2018) — As The Post & Email reported on Tuesday evening, FNC’s “The Five” co-host Jesse Watters suggested, perhaps in jest, that Obama’s “birth certificate” constitutes a “scandal” in the former White House occupant’s administration.

Watters’s unexpected remark came as a response to Obama’s statement made to an audience at MIT last week in an off-the-record address that his administration experienced no “embarrassing” scandals during its eight years.

The audio was leaked to reason.com, which made it public on Monday.

The discussion about Obama-era “scandals,” led by co-host Greg Gutfeld, begins at 11:15 in the YouTube video.  Gutfeld explained Obama’s claim as having resulted from the media’s obliviousness to any scandals which might have existed during Obama’s two terms.

Gutfeld refuted Obama’s claim by recalling the four American deaths in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 during a terrorist attack which the Obama White House initially denied as the cause.

Watters was referencing the “long-form” birth certificate image posted on the White House website on April 27, 2011 said to represent Obama’s original birth record from the state of Hawaii.  Soon after it was made public, several graphics experts declared it an easily-detected forgery.

In response to Gutfeld’s opening, co-host Dana Perino noted that “all of the Obama people” had stressed, even while still in office, that there were “no scandals” in the manner of a “rote talking point.”  “‘No scandals’ is the new ‘no collusion,'” Perino said, comparing the claim to current allegations under investigation that member of the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russian-government operatives.

At 14:15, Gutfeld commented that he recalled MSNBC hosts calling anyone critical of Obama “racist,”  a technique used before Obama was elected in 2008 and with increasing regularity once he assumed office.  The term was applied to those questioning Obama’s life story given its many contradictions.

At 14:25, co-host Jesse Watters said, looking at the camera and then at Gutfeld, “I think you glossed over a pretty big Obama scandal, Greg:  the birth certificate,” to which Gutfeld let out a loud guffaw.  “I mean, that was huge, that lobbyist (?) who was a forgery, and, uh, he pulled one over on the American people. Arpaio is still getting to the bottom of that.”

“Arpaio” referred to former Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, who authorized a criminal investigation into the image which lasted more than five years and determined that the birth certificate image is a “computer-generated forgery.”

Arpaio’s chief investigator, Mike Zullo, and radio show host Carl Gallups, who has been close to the investigation for years, said during an interview on Tuesday that the media, including Fox, has been loath to discuss the findings of forgery and fraud in regard to the birth certificate image given the ramifications.

Zullo has said on multiple occasions that the image was posted “with the intent to deceive” and as “direct evidence to support a phony narrative.”

Article II, Section 1, clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution requires the president to be a “natural born Citizen.”  Reports emanating from various sources dating back to 1990 to include NPR, MSNBC and the AP stated Obama as having been born in Indonesia or Kenya, not Hawaii, as he claims.

Acting shocked at Watters’s comments, co-host Juan Williams leaned back in his seat and threw up his left arm, saying, “You won’t give up on the ‘birther’….oh, my gosh…”

Cross-talk and laughter then ensued, with co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle making the comment, “Nothing can resuscitate you guys” in response to Williams’s placing his hand on his chest in mock response to Watters’s “heart shot.”

Patting Williams on the left shoulder, Watters said, “I’m teasing, Juan. We believe it’s real.  I believe him, I believe him! (inaudible).”

Perino said nothing except, “Oh, gosh” to punctuate the discussion, which then moved on to the Benghazi attack.