Trump fires himself from presidential bid

The voters of America have been denied the opportunity to inform Donald Trump that he's "fired" after the entrepreneur and host of The Apprentice withdrew his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

A campaign which never strayed too far from the brink of farce, but nonetheless briefly saw Trump reach second place in polls, ended yesterday with the release of a statement saying "after considerable deliberation" he had decided to remain focused on his reality television career.

"This decision does not come easily or without regret, especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders," he said.

"I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and, ultimately, the general election."

Cynics had always detected a whiff of a PR stunt about Trump's run for the White House. He has, after all, made headline-grabbing comments about standing for office in the run-up to previous elections, only to withdraw.

The zenith of his latest bid came last month, when he toured rolling-news studios voicing scepticism over whether Barack Obama was born in the United States.

At the time, roughly 50 per cent of Republican voters believed a conspiracy theory that he was actually born in Kenya.

Fuelling their suspicions, Trump told interviewers he had dispatched a team of "investigators" to Hawaii to examine Obama's birth records.

However, the existence of that team was never verified, and it later emerged that they hadn't bothered to examine state birth records.

That didn't seem to faze Republican voters, though, and for a period, Trump was polling around 20 per cent, putting him second in a field of contenders for the nomination.

When the "birther" issue started to impact upon the news agenda, the White House agreed to publish the President's long-form birth certificate.

Critics subsequently said Trump's "birther" campaign stoked dog-whistle racism.

Asked to respond to that allegation, he told an interviewer: "I have a great relationship with the blacks." Shortly afterwards, his poll rating slumped to around 6 per cent.

Perhaps the most memorable chapter in Trump's bid came at last month's White House Correspondents' Dinner, when he was subjected to sustained ridicule in comic speeches by Barack Obama and the comedian Seth Meyers.

- Independent