NEW YORK -- After a toothless performance in Wednesday's Republican presidential debate, Donald Trump’s campaign rolled into a crisis on Thursday when the reality TV star failed to correct a supporter who explicitely called for the ethnic cleansing of Muslims.
Trump speaks during a town hall event at Rochester Recreational Arena September 17, 2015 in Rochester, New Hampshire
The first man to grab the microphone at an event in Rochester, New Hampshire, said: "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims. You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American."
Trump’s rebuttal?
"We need this question? This is the first question?"
The unidentified man in a “Trump” t-shirt continued: "Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us… That's my question: When can we get rid of them?"
Trump’s rebuttal?
"We're going to be looking at a lot of different things. You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things."
When asked after the event why the property tycoon didn’t correct the questioner, his campaign manager ran to a familiar excuse: He didn’t hear the question.
Beleaguered apologist Corey Lewandowski offered the following mitigation: "All he heard was a question about training camps, which he said we have to look into. The media want to make this an issue about Obama, but it's about him waging a war on Christianity."
Trump launched a pretend presidential campaign ahead of the 2012 election, but was forced out of the race after this roasting at the White House Correspondents' dinner:
That “campaign” was based on Trump’s innuendo that the president was not an American-born citizen, with the attendant suggestion that he was a Muslim fifth-columnist bent on ending the Republic.
And if you think Trump didn't hear the questioner, watch this: