At his press conference on Wednesday, President Obama scolded the media for focusing on his birth certificate instead of more important issues.
He started the conference by calling out NBC's Chuck Todd directly.
"I can't get the networks to break in on all kinds of other discussions," he said. "I was just back there listening to Chuck—he was saying, it’s amazing that he’s not going to be talking about national security. I would not have the networks breaking in if I was talking about that, Chuck, and you know it."
He then said that part of the reason that he wanted to release the birth certificate was because he was seeing coverage of the issue dominate the media, rather than discussion of the federal budget or other issues.
While the issue has certainly been heavily covered, the Pew Research Center pointed out that discussion of the birther issue made up for just 4 percent of the news coverage during the period Obama cited in his address. However, Donald Trump was the second most covered newsmaker last week, and his recent media appearances have been almost exclusively related to birther issues.
"I’m speaking to the vast majority of the American people, as well as to the press," Obama said. "We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do. I’ve got better stuff to do."
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