Claims nobody at Obama's school "ever saw him"

During his CPAC speech, Trump amplified conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's background, claiming, "The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don't know who he is. It's crazy." PolitiFact rated the claim "Pants on Fire," citing numerous classmates who remembered Obama at Columbia University and Harvard Law School. This marked the beginning of Trump's public embrace of "birther-adjacent" theories to delegitimize the president.

"The people that went to school with him, they never saw him, they don't know who he is." — Speech at CPAC 2011