Obama jokes about birther conspiracy: ‘I was able to get away with’ not being born in US

Former President Obama is mocking the “birther” conspiracy theory about him touted for years by President Trump, joking that he was “able to get away with” not being born in the United States.

The 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, is set to appear Monday night on “The Daily Show” to promote his new book, “A Promised Land.”

In a preview clip from the interview with Trevor Noah, the Comedy Central host cracked that Obama’s comical roasts of public figures have led them to make White House bids.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you have an ability to inspire people to run for the highest office in the land with some of the jokes you tell about them,” Noah told a grinning Obama.

Some pundits have theorized that Obama’s biting remarks at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner about Trump, who was a guest there, might have helped motivate the then-real estate developer to run for office.

Obama also once referred to rapper Kanye West as a “jackass” for interrupting Taylor Swift when she was accepting an MTV Video Music Award in 2009. West launched an unsuccessful presidential bid under the Birthday Party this year.

“I should roast people I admire more. I’ll start roasting you, man,” Obama, 59, quipped to Noah, who was born in South Africa.

“Although you weren’t born here,” he continued. “But, look, I was able to get away with it, apparently.”

Trump spent much of Obama’s time in office pushing the racist and unfounded theory that he was not born in the United States.

In his new memoir, Obama wrote that his being elected the first Black president “triggered a deep-seated panic” and “a sense that the natural order had been disrupted,” which “is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started pedaling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and thus was an illegitimate president.”

“For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety,” Obama wrote.

Noah’s full interview with Obama airs Monday at 11 p.m. EST on Comedy Central.