RNC Chair to Trump: Shut up! [View All]

[cali]

Newly-installed Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has a message for Donald Trump and other so-called "birthers": Shut up!

Priebus, who's starting to score some fundraising and organizational victories inside GOP HQ, having taken over for controversial former Chairman Michael Steele, says the debate over President Obama's birthplace and whether he can be president is a huge distraction away from the party's effort to fight Democratic spending and tax plans.

In an interview, we asked if he, like Trump, is a birther. "I'm not," says Priebus. "I believe that the president was born in Hawaii."

Trump has made headlines with the issue and it's even vaulted him to first in a number of GOP presidential preference polls. Newsmax, for example, has an Internet poll out today that says 57 percent of the 550,000 poll takers favor Trump over any other Republican for the upcoming 2012 GOP primaries. Every other candidate is in single digits. What's more, when asked who they'd vote for if the election were held today. 68 percent chose Trump while just 13 percent chose Obama.

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http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/04/13/gop-boss-wants-trump-to-shut-up-on-birther-claims