This time Donald Trump is in hot water for what he didn’t say.
The Republican presidential front-runner decided to shake things up at a New Hampshire rally Thursday by abandoning his stump speech — wall, China, proven business leader — and taking questions from the crowd.
And the first one was a doozy.
“We’ve got a problem in this country,” said the first questioner. “It’s called Muslims. You know our current President is one. You know he’s not even an American.”
“We need this question?” Trump said, laughing.
“But anyway,” the man continued, “We have training camps growing, where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”
Instead of correcting the man on President Obama’s religion — he’s Christian — or denouncing the blanket statement about all Muslims, the birther movement banner holder just let it hang in the air.
“We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things,” Trump said. “And you know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton blasted the billionaire real estate mogul for not correcting the questioner.
“Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out. -H,” she tweeted.
“GOP frontrunner Donald Trump’s racism knows no bounds. This is certainly horrendous but unfortunately unsurprising given what we have seen already,” said Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schulz.
In 2008, Sen. John McCain drew boos at a town hall when he corrected a woman who called then-Sen. Obama “an Arab.”
“I have to tell you, Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as President of the United States,” McCain said.
Trump’s camp responded to the mounting backlash by accusing Obama of waging a religious war.
“The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christians in this country,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. “Christians need support in this country. Their religious liberty is at stake.”