Donald Trump took fire from all sides on Thursday after he deflected a question at a rally from a supporter who called President Obama a Muslim and asked how Trump will get Muslims out of America.
“We got a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one, you know he’s not even an American,” a supporter said to Trump, adding that there are training camps growing wherein Muslims are plotting to kill Americans. The supporter concluded by imploring Trump to get them out of the country.
Trump joked about such a rough question being the first out of the gate, but only answered that he’s going to take a look at a lot of things.
Hillary Clinton seized on Trump’s non-answer quickly: “Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out. -H”
Her opponent Bernie Sanders called Trump’s deflection a “disgrace” and an “outrage.”
“I think it’s a disgrace to again question whether or not the president of the United States was born in this country, or whether he’s a Christian,” Sanders said on CBS on Friday. “I thought we were beyond that. It’s an outrage.”
Anderson Cooper ripped Trump for failing to lead: “If you’re an actual leader … if you actually want to lead people in this country and you want to be president to all people in this country, including the Muslim population in this country, you don’t just pander to every loudmouth in your audience.”
“This is racist crap, of course,” Chris Matthews opined, claiming Trump is clearly playing the race card and that he’s glad MSNBC “shows him in action” instead of heeding the calls to stop covering him.
“Last night I turned on the TV and everybody’s hair was on fire,” Scarborough said. Brzezinski said it’s not “necessarily fair” to attack Trump, but since he has a history of questioning the president’s birthplace, it makes sense for people to attack him for not condemning the supporter’s comments.
Trump issued a statement to The Washington Post saying, “The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christians…”