Rick Perry: Obama Birth Certificate 'A Good Issue To Keep Alive' (VIDEO)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the birther issue was worth "keeping alive" in a CNBC interview Tuesday morning. "It's a good issue to keep alive. It's fun to poke at him," said Perry, according to host John Harwood. Harwood interviewed Perry about his flat tax proposal that he is unveiling Tuesday, which sets an across-the-board twenty percent rate on individuals and corporations with some deductions.

Perry also spoke evasively about President Barack Obama's birth certificate in an interview with Parade magazine published over the weekend. When asked if he believed the president was born in the United States, he said, "I have no reason to think otherwise." Asked why he didn't give a definitive answer, Perry replied, "Well, I don't have a definitive answer, because he's never seen my birth certificate."

Perry said in the CNBC interview, "I'm really not worried about the president's birth certificate. It's fun to poke at him a little bit and say, how 'bout let's see your grades and your birth certificate." Perry's own transcript from Texas A&M University, obtained by The Huffington Post, shows that he seldom earned anything above a C and includes a D in Shakespeare and a C in gym.

Despite the president releasing his long-form birth certificate online showing he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, some still doubt that Obama was born in the United States, and therefore eligible serve as commander-in-chief.

When asked by Parade if he'd seen the president's birth certificate, Perry said: "I don't know. Have I?"

Perry said that he had met with Donald Trump, and the issue came up, but he wouldn't say whether he agreed with Trump, who still doubts the veracity of the document. "I don't have any idea. It doesn't matter. He's the president of the United States. He's elected. It's a distractive issue."

The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported that Missippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a senior statesman within the GOP, warned Republicans not to talk about the birther issue. Karl Rove blasted Perry on Monday for not giving a straight answer on the birther issue and therefore associating himself with a "nutty fringe group."

Comments

[samuraifrog37]

08:40 AM on 11/01/2011

He makes me sick....

[samuraifrog37]

08:40 AM on 11/01/2011

This is the kind of Pub hate that will do us all a favor to keep up...it shows him for what he is; A hate monger racist, who has NO respect for the office of The President, no respect for himself or our country. Another 1%er who just wants to keep the rabble down....He's not good for us at all. God bless America !!

[RMax304823]

07:35 PM on 10/29/2011

It's all very well to "poke" Perry over incidents like this, but the problem is that what he's saying has a good deal of appeal to some in the audience. (Otherwise he wouldn't say such idiotic things.) Perry's public support happens to be down somewhere in the single digits. That percentage, even if small, should be studied by social psychologists. I'd love to know more about them.

[Jayne NatzelParadis]

04:43 AM on 10/29/2011

Amazing how the Repubs and the T-P's can continue to beat a dead horse and then expect anyone to take them serious.

[1laingirl]

09:59 PM on 10/27/2011

With Perry using the term poke like that, it's apparent that he has never watched or read "Lonesome Dove", which is almost a Texas classic. If he did, he probably forgot it since he doesn't have much of a memory.

[SocialistBoy]

10:30 PM on 10/27/2011

Now we know who painted the name on the, hunting camp, rock!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_9WxAEGY8c

[Q45]

09:07 AM on 10/30/2011

HA! That video is funny and clearly an example of the type of mentality that would anxiously debase another race of people.

[SocialistBoy]

10:26 PM on 10/27/2011

Wonder where you was 'hatch' Ricky!!??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngiJhmoFKkw

More fun to poke at you!!

[Q45]

09:17 AM on 10/30/2011

Another laughable video, this video is more telling than the one above, sheesh, it says the moderator would make a better candidate.

[froidytoidy]

09:56 PM on 10/27/2011

Sure, why not? A Presidential candidate poking fun at the President of the United States while the whole world is watching. Wonder what else occupies his time?

[atretrioeciii]

08:42 PM on 10/27/2011

I hate to say it, but I love watching Perry twist like this.

It's like watching a child lie, even though the child knows you know they are lying.

Every smile is so fake, every attempt at laughing is so obviously uncomfortable.

Every word out of his mouth has so much desperation in it....

I keep waiting for him to say "I'd like to use one of my lifelines!"

[Q45]

09:30 AM on 10/30/2011

Right, Lol Perry's critical thinking skills sucks.

[carlgt1]

07:04 PM on 10/27/2011

childishness - how presidential (for Repugs I guess)

[Elvira Walker]

04:41 PM on 10/27/2011

If Obama was born under the watchful eyes of every republican in the United States, Someone would still question his ligitimacy. It's not if he was born in the US, it's who he was born as in the US.

[Boopsie2008]

07:31 PM on 10/27/2011

I agree. Nobody would have a problem with him if his middle name were "Steve."

[jmoser1973]

09:19 PM on 10/27/2011

what is even more silly, according to the constitution, even if he wasn't born here, he is still eligible to be president.

[indiecratublican]

05:22 PM on 10/27/2011

You know what's also fun to poke at? Perry's dead corpse of a career? It's like roadkill you can't quite get off your tires- or if you want to be deep, it's like roadkill you can't get off the wheels of change in this country. Why can't we shout "next" and get rid of his overplayed media presence? -Just like Palin and Bachman and all the other conservative and political toxic waste? It's like we'd rather kill brain cells than pursue something intellectually stimulating and smart.

[mlm4420]

10:26 PM on 10/27/2011

Spot on!

[tssent]

02:13 PM on 10/27/2011

Well Guv, allow me to be a little crass here.
I'd take Obama with no birth certificate as president
vs you with 10 birth certificates as dog catcher.

It's a certain matter of ............of...........class, sir.
He's got it with or without a birth certificate, and you
don't. 

My fear if you were president is that while you were
overseas visiting the Queen or on some really
important trip, the paparazzi would almost certainly
catch you at some point picking your nose -- or
something similar.

I understand you're going to skip the rest of the
debates?  Well, we don't need to know how our
president speaks, what his ideas are or what his
plans are.  Those are things for free societies to
mull over and one more Republican victory and
any semblance of America that was will be gone
forever -- not that there's much of it still showing
now.

[Magnus Johansson X]

03:32 PM on 10/27/2011

"It's a certain matter of ............of...........class, sir.
He's got it with or without a birth certificate, and you
don't. "

You sound like a true HuffPost pundit.

[tssent]

04:14 PM on 10/27/2011

Why thank you.

[nwlover]

06:31 PM on 10/27/2011

Perry will be wearing a big red nose and huge clown shoes for his next interview. You know, it's so hilarious to poke fun at people.

[Boopsie2008]

06:33 PM on 10/27/2011

".... the paparazzi would almost certainly
catch you at some point picking your nose -- or
something similar."

Yes, this brought another orifice to mind."

[Q45]

09:46 AM on 10/30/2011

Like with a hyphen followed by hole? Would Perry know the meaning of orifice?

[Fuddgate]

01:56 PM on 10/27/2011

This has nothing to do with "poking fun" and everything to do with wallowing in the trough of tea bagger racism. Rachel is right. This dim witted loser is floundering badly. He's courting the racist tea baggers because he's in desperate trouble and running out of options. I hope his race to the bottom ends with infamy and failure.

[rjciraulo]

01:17 PM on 10/27/2011

Excellent. "Fun to poke at him". Just what we need.....a lousy comedian in the White House.

[DocJoseph]

02:31 PM on 10/27/2011

I just picture Perry with a stick. We used to use sticks to poke at rattlesnakes and scorpions.

But with humans, it takes on a whole new dimension.

[torgman3]

05:53 PM on 10/27/2011

We already had one for eight years.

[rjciraulo]

07:55 PM on 10/27/2011

LOL! one what? Rattlesnake, scorpion or lousy comedian?