AP Photo Trump doesn't correct man who says Obama is Muslim 
 
 Confronted with a questioner who called Muslims a "problem" and asserted that President Obama is a Muslim and not American, Donald Trump did not correct him on Thursday night. 
 
 "We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. Our current President is one. We know he’s not even an American,” said a questioner at a town hall in New Hampshire. “We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question, when can we get rid of them?” 
 
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 “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 a lot of different things,” Trump responded. 
 
 Trump has been a leading proponent of the discredited theory that Obama was not born in the United States. 
 
 "The media wants to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christians in this country. Christians need support in this country. Their religious liberties are at stake," a Trump campaign spokeswoman said in an email. 
 
 Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton hit back at Trump on Twitter, tweeting: "Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out. -H” ||||| Washington (CNN) Donald Trump came under fire Friday morning for his handling of a question at a town hall about when the U.S. can "get rid" of Muslims, for failing to take issue with that premise and an assertion that President Barack Obama is Muslim. 
 
 Trump, who has shaken off several high-profile controversies that would have ended other presidential campaigns, faced an immediate backlash from advocacy groups, and members of his own party distanced themselves from the GOP front-runner. The incident recalls Trump's 2011 quest to challenge Obama on where he was born, which ended with Obama releasing his long-form birth certificate. It also follows a debate performance Wednesday that garnered mixed reviews for the billionaire businessman. 
 
 "We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," an unidentified man who spoke at a question-and-answer town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire asked the mogul at a rally Thursday night. "You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American." 
 
 A seemingly bewildered Trump interrupted the man, chuckling, "We need this question. This is the first question." 
 
 "Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us," the man, wearing a "Trump" T-shirt, continued. "That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" 
 
 "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump replied. "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." 
 
 The real estate mogul did not correct the questioner about his claims about Obama before moving on to another audience member. 
 
 White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest condemned the remarks Friday, but added "Is anybody really surprised that this happened at a Donald Trump rally?" 
 
 The audience members comments and Trump's response were quickly denounced by Democrats. Hillary Clinton, the party's front-runner for president, personally tweeted late Thursday that Trump's remarks were "just plain wrong," and followed up on it Friday morning at a press conference. 
 
 "I was appalled," Clinton said bluntly to a question from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux. "Not only was it out of bounds, it was untrue. He should have from the beginning corrected that kind of rhetoric, that level of hatefulness." 
 
 Fellow Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley condemned the remarks. 
 
 Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, called the incident a sign of "a lack of moral courage." 
 
 "I don't know if Trump is using dog-whistle politics to win support in the polls, or if he genuinely believes the racist things he says. Either way, he showed a complete lack of moral courage in that clip, and he has shown once again that he completely unqualified to be President of the United States." 
 
 Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz flatly called Trump a racist in a statement. 
 
 "GOP front-runner Donald Trump's racism knows no bounds. This is certainly horrendous, but unfortunately unsurprising given what we have seen already. The vile rhetoric coming from the GOP candidates is appalling," Schultz said. "(Republicans) should be ashamed, and all Republican presidential candidates must denounce Trump's comments immediately or will be tacitly agreeing with him." 
 
 After the event, several reporters asked Trump why he didn't challenge the questioner's assertions. Trump did not answer. 
 
 But Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager, later told CNN that the candidate did not hear the question about Obama being a Muslim. 
 
 "All he heard was a question about training camps, which he said we have to look into," Lewandowski said. "The media want to make this an issue about Obama, but it's about him waging a war on Christianity." 
 
 Trump announced Friday that he would cancel his trip to South Carolina, citing "a significant business transaction." 
 
 New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Friday that he would not "lecture" Trump on how to respond to comments like that, but said that leaders are responsible for correcting voters on certain issues. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I would do and I wouldn't have permitted that if someone brought that up at a town hall meeting of mine. I would have said, 'No, listen. Before we answer let's clear some things up for the rest of the audience.' And I think you have an obligation as a leader to do that," Christie said on NBC's "TODAY" Friday. 
 
 Falsehoods persist about Obama's background 
 
 Obama, who has spoken openly about his Christian faith, was born to an American mother and Kenyan father in Hawaii. But Trump has been one of the leading skeptics of Obama's birthplace, saying he did not know where Obama was born as recently as July 
 
 A recent CNN/ORC poll found 29% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, including 43% of Republicans. 
 
 Trump is not the first Republican candidate to raise eyebrows over comments involving Obama and his ethnic and religious background. In February, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became embroiled in a brief controversy when he told The Washington Post that he didn't know if Obama was a Christian. 
 
 "I've never asked him that," Walker said. A spokeswoman later clarified that he did believe Obama was Christian, but disagreed with the media's obsession with "gotcha" questions. 
 
 And in 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain was booed after he famously told an audience member at a campaign event that Obama was a "good family man." 
 
 "He's a decent family man ... (a) citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues," McCain said then. "That's what this campaign is all about." ||||| Speaking at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, Trump told the crowd he’d field their toughest questions. 
 
 “Make them vicious, violent, terrible questions,” Trump said. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT The first man stood and declared: 
 
 “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one — you know he’s not even an American. But anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question, when can we get rid of them?” 
 
 Trump responded: “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things, a lot of people are saying bad things are happening, we’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things.” 
 
 A second man stood and made the same claim. 
 
 “I applaud the gentleman who stood and said Obama is a Muslim born abroad and about the military camps, everyone knows that,” he said. 
 
 “Right,” Trump responded, before quickly moving to the next questioner. 
 
 President Obama is a Christian and was born in Hawaii in 1961. 
 
 Trump spent years questioning whether President Obama was born in the U.S. When Obama publicly released his long-form birth certificate in 2011, Trump took credit, saying he had pressured the president into doing so. Still, Trump has signaled that he remains unconvinced that Obama was born here. In 2012, Trump said he’d pony up $5 million to the charity of Obama’s choice if the president would release his college transcripts and passport history. As recently as July, Trump has said he doesn’t know where the president was born. "I don't know. I really don't know," he told CNN . "I don't know why he wouldn't release his records." 
 
 Trump on Thursday also fielded a question from a conspiracy theorist who told him that there is a “new holocaust” in New Hampshire and that people are being loaded into boxcars and beheaded by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. 
 
 “I just wanted you to know that,” the woman said. 
 
 Trump moved on without addressing the woman’s claim. 
 
 The campaign rally in Rochester drew about 3,000 people and was Trump’s first public event since the GOP presidential debate in Simi Valley, Calif., on Wednesday night. 
 
 Trump opened the rally, which lasted for only about 45 minutes, by boasting about a series of online polls that found him the winner of the debate and of his endorsements from football greats Tom Brady and Mike Ditka. 
 
 He hewed closely to his stump speech, saying that under his leadership, the U.S. military would be as powerful as ever, that he’d build a great wall to keep illegal immigrants out and that he’d deport illegal immigrants that are violent criminals “so fast your head will spin.” 
 
 Trump responded to a question from a man upset about raises for federal workers by saying that he wouldn’t accept a salary as president. 
 
 And a day after locking horns with businesswoman Carly Fiorina at the GOP debate over her record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Trump continued to bash her record as an executive. 
 
 “She did a terrible, terrible job,” Trump said. 
 
 — Updated at 8:33 p.m.
– Donald Trump, apparently forgetting about the time he pressured the president of the United States into producing his birth certificate, failed to correct a man at a town hall event last night who claimed President Obama is a Muslim—and not an American. The questioner at the Rochester, NH, event described Muslims as a "problem" and went on to say, "Our current president is one. We know he's not even an American. We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" Trump responded: "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 a lot of different things," Politico reports. When another man stood and said he wanted to "applaud the gentleman who stood and said Obama is a Muslim born abroad and about the military camps," Trump said, "Right" before moving on, the Hill reports. Hillary Clinton calls Trump's failure to denounce the remarks "disturbing," while DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls the candidate's behavior "horrendous" but "unsurprising," saying "Trump's racism knows no bounds," CNN reports. Trump's campaign manager tells CNN that Trump didn't hear the remark about Obama being Muslim, and that the real issue is the president's "war on Christianity." (A recent poll found that 43% of Republicans still think Obama is a Muslim, which rises to 66% among Trump supporters.)