Even before he was elected, some on the right have questioned President Barack Obama's place of birth. The controversy arguably reached its apex earlier this year when business man, reality show star and then-prospective GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump went on a tour of talk shows and news programs openly questioning the validity of Obama's native status, and thus the status of his presidency.

In April, the White House posted a photo of Obama's Hawaii birth certificate online.

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn't good for the country, the blog post where it was posted read. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country.

With this announcement and with Trump pulling out of the race before he ever actually entered, the controversy seemed to taper off, and has not been a major part of the Republican race since it began in earnest with debates in August.

Until, it seems, now.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said in an interview with Parade Magazine that he'd recently shared a meal with Trump, the Christian Sciene Monitor reported. Trump, it seems, believes the issued birth certificate is a fake. Perry wasn't sure what he thought.

I don't have any idea, Governor Perry said, according to the Science Monitor. It doesn't matter. He's the president of the United States. He's elected. It's a distractive issue.

Perry has drawn the ire of at least one prominent Republican operative for wading into an issue that so many see as contrived: former President George W. Bush's strategist Karl Rove.

You associate yourself with a nutty view like that, and you damage yourself, Rove said, according to CNN.

Other candidates have weighed in on the issue throughout the campaign process.

In April, nomination favorite and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said that while there were plenty of reasons to remove Obama from the White House, his citizenship wasn't one of them, according to politico/

I think the citizenship test has been passed, he said, according to Politico. I believe the president was born in the United States.

The New York Daily News reported that Michele Bachmann, who is the favorite candidate of many Tea Party members, said the issue was over after the White House released in April.

Herman Cain, who has recently shot to the top of the polls, said last March that Trump was not off base, according to Salon.

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