Donald Trump condemned for not correcting statement about Obama being Muslim
Donald Trump has been slammed for declining to rebuke a man who insulted Muslims and wrongly said President Barack Obama is a member of the faith during a Q&A session on Thursday.
The Republican presidential candidate who, has a history of making controversial remarks about immigrants and other groups, was kicking off a town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire when he took questions from the audience.
"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," said the first man Trump called on to ask a question. "We know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American."
Trump, a driver of the "birther" movement that falsely claimed Obama was born outside the U.S., first responded with feigned exasperation — "We need the question," he said, to laughs — before letting the man continue.
"We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question," the man in the audience continued. "When can we get rid of it?"
Trump did not dispute the man's assertion that militants operate training camps on American soil and said he'd heard others raise the issue.
"We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. And you know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there," said Trump.
"We're going to be looking at that and plenty of other things."
Trump has since come under fire from Democrats and even some Republicans.
"He knew, or he should have known, that what that man was asking was not only way out of bounds, it was untrue," said Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
"He should have from the beginning repudiated that kind of rhetoric, that level of hatefulness."
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said it was unfortunate that Trump "wasn't able to summon the same kind of patriotism" that Republican Sen. John McCain showed in 2008, when he took the microphone away from a woman who said she didn't trust Obama because he was Arab.
Trump did not respond to shouted questions about the exchange as he left the event, but his campaign released a statement in response that focused on the treatment of Christians in the country.
"The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christians in this country," it read. "Christians need support in this country. Their religious liberty is at stake."
Trump's questions about the president's country of birth helped build his stature among some conservative voters and pushed Obama to release a copy of his birth certificate in 2011.
But the billionaire businessman has distanced himself from the issue during his current run.
