Donald Trump is furious that the Washington Post reported on his recent suggestion that President Obama may be on the side of the terrorists, even going so far as to deny the newspaper credentials to cover his campaign events.
Trump, who often tries to raise conspiracy theories by saying that he is simply asking the question and only throwing things out there that he’s “heard” from others, repeatedly hinted in the wake of last weekend’s attack in Orlando that Obama may be deliberately helping Islamic extremists.
Trump said while discussing terrorism on Fox News on Monday:
He doesn’t get it or he gets it better than anybody understands — it’s one or the other, and either one is unacceptable …. Look, guys, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or has something else in mind. And the something else in mind — people can’t believe it. People cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.
“Well there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn’t want to get it,” Trump said on NBC. “A lot of people think maybe he doesn’t want to know about it.”
Yesterday, Trump told the Associated Press that Obama “continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies and, for that matter, the American people.” Earlier today, Trump shared on Twitter a Breitbart article which he claimed proves that Obama is in fact on the side of ISIS.
No one should be surprised by this Trump conspiracy theory.
Polls show that Trump’s supporters have widely embraced the conspiracy theory that the president is a secret Muslim. And the birther candidate has made such claims for years, among many, many conspiracy theories that he has embraced.
Here are seven other times when Trump has suggested the President Obama is secretly a Muslim or secretly sympathizes with terrorists:
1) ‘Maybe He Doesn’t Want To Get Rid Of The Problem’
In February, Trump told radio host Michael Savage that Obama refuses to say the magic words “radical Islamic terrorism” because maybe he doesn’t want to stop the terrorists.
We have a president that won’t even use the words and if you don’t use the words, you’re never going to get rid of the problem. We have a — maybe he doesn’t want to get rid of the problem. I don’t know exactly what’s going on.
Savage seemed to know exactly what Trump meant.
“Ah ha. Now you’re going as close to the board as a hockey player can go without hitting the puck into the stands. I get it,” he said.
In another interview with Savage, Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. was actively trying to prevent Russia from bombing the terrorist group ISIS.
2) Obama Is Arming ISIS
Back in 2014, Trump tweeted the grossly inaccurate claim that Obama was actually trying to send arms to ISIS.
Obama sent weapons through Benghazi to ISIS yet he is holding up shipments to Israel. What is he thinking?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2014
So Obama wants to bomb ISIS in Iraq & arm them in Syria? What is he doing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2014
3) Maybe It Says ‘Muslim’ On His Birth Certificate
In a 2011 interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump said that “somebody” told him that Obama might be suppressing the truth about his birthplace because his real birth certificate identifies him as a Muslim:
He doesn’t have a birth certificate or, if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now somebody told me, and I have no idea whether this is bad for him or not but perhaps it would be, that where it says ‘religion’ it might have ‘Muslim,’ and if you’re a Muslim, you don’t change your religion by the way, but somebody said, ‘Maybe that’s the reason he doesn’t want to show it.’ I don’t think so. I just don’t think he has a birth certificate and everybody has a birth certificate.
He made a similar statement on an interview that year with Bill O’Reilly: “He doesn’t have a birth certificate. He may have one but there’s something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want that. Or he may not have one. But I will tell you this. If he wasn’t born in this country, it’s one of the great scams of all time.”
4) Obama’s ‘Arabic’ Ring
In 2012, Trump tweeted an article from birther investigator Jerome Corsi that falsely claimed that Obama wears a ring bearing the Islamic statement of faith, something that Corsi believes is proof that Obama was secretly married to his male Pakistani roommate. (The ring only contains a series of loops).
“Who is this guy?” Trump asked.
Why does Barack Obama’s ring have an arabic inscription? http://t.co/upa00265 Who is this guy?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 11, 2012
5) Madonna Knows The Truth!
Trump appeared to take a joke from Madonna way too seriously:
Does Madonna know something we all don’t about Barack? At a concert she said “we have a black Muslim in the White House.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2012
6) Scalia Funeral
Trump marked Justice Antonin Scalia’s death by wondering about the real reason Obama didn’t attend his funeral:
I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of Justice Scalia if it were held in a Mosque? Very sad that he did not go!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2016
7) ‘There’s Something We Don’t Know About’
At a South Carolina campaign rally last year, Trump said that Obama is deliberately ignoring the problem of terrorism in the Islamic world to advance his nefarious agenda:
“We can’t close our eyes,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Obama, he wants to close his eyes and pretend it’s not happening. Why is he so emphatic on not solving the problem? There’s something we don’t know about. There’s something we don’t know about.”
Naturally, at least one of his supporters shouted, “He’s a Muslim!”
