ROCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump declined Thursday to correct a questioner at a town hall event who stated that President Obama is Muslim and said he’d be “looking at” claims of terrorist training camps on American soil.
Mr. Trump, who has a history of criticizing illegal immigrants and other groups, was kicking off a town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire — his first since Wednesday evening’s second Republican primary debate.
“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.”
Mr. Trump, who helped push the “birther” movement into the mainstream and eventually force Mr. Obama to release his birth certificate, responded with exasperation — “We need the question,” he said, to laughs.
But he let the man continue.
“We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question,” the questioner continued. “When can we get rid of it?”
Mr. Trump did not dispute the man’s factual claims 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,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.”
The incident evoked a moment during the 2008 campaign when Republican nominee John McCain, who lost to Mr. Obama, took the microphone away from a woman who said she didn’t trust Mr. Obama because he was an Arab.
Mr. Trump’s questions about the president’s country of birth helped build his stature among some conservative voters in 2011, but the billionaire businessman has distanced himself from the matter during his current run.
The town hall meeting, in a sweaty auditorium in Rochester, was also interrupted several times by a protester, whose interruptions were met by hostility from the friendly crowd.
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