Donald Trump's New York campaign co-chairman, Carl Paladino, resurrected assertions that President Barack Obama is a Muslim, citing Obama's policies towards the Middle East as proof.
"In the mind of the average American, there is no doubt he is a Muslim," Paladino, the Republican candidate for New York governor in 2010, told The Observer in Manhatan. "He is not a Christian."
Speaking by phone with the Observer, which is owned by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, Paladino suddenly launched into an attack on Obama, specifically over his actions in the Middle East.
"Look at what he's done with Iran, what he's done with the Sunni-Shia thing over in Iraq and Iran, and with ISIS," Paladino said, referring to Islamic State by an acronym.
Despite Obama attending multiple Christian churches in Chicago and in Washington, according to Politifact, some like Paladino and actor/model Antonio Sabato Jr. still believe the president is secretly a Muslim.
"We had one, we had a Muslim president for seven-and-a-half years," Sabato said in an interview after speaking at the Republican National Convention. "I don't believe the guy is a Christian, I don't believe he follows the God that I love and the Jesus that I love. I think that he has had an agenda from the beginning."
But biographer David Mendell, a journalist, wrote in his 2007 book "Obama: From Promise to Power," that the candidate was never far from Christianity's holy book.
"Along his Senate campaign trail, Obama would never fail to carry his Christian Bible," Mendell wrote. "He would place it right beside him, in the small compartment in the passenger side door of the SUV, so he could refer to it often."
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