Donald Trump's history of suggesting Obama is a Muslim

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump hit presidential campaign turbulence Friday for his handling of a town hall participant's comment about President Barack Obama's religion -- but this was only the most recent time the real estate mogul stirred controversy over the President's background.

Trump has long been one of the most vocal skeptics about Obama's birthplace and faith.

And during a candidate forum in Iowa earlier this year, when asked about Obama's commitment to the United States, Trump replied, "I don't know if he loves America."  Questions about whether Trump intentionally encourages his supporters to believe such claims resurfaced at a campaign rally Thursday. Trump is under fire after he didn't correct a supporter who said Obama was not an American and was a Muslim.

"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," a man attending Trump's rally in Rochester, New Hampshire, said. "You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American.""We need this question," Trump said, chuckling. "This is the first question."

The man continued: "We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That's my question: When can we get rid of them?"

"We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump said. "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."

After the event, Trump's campaign manager told CNN that the GOP front-runner didn't hear the first part of the man's statement.

"All he heard was a question about training camps, which he said we have to look into," Corey Lewandowski said. "The media want to make this an issue about Obama, but it's about him waging a war on Christianity."

The White House slammed Trump on Friday.  "Is anyone really surprised that this happened at a Donald Trump rally?" White House spokesman Josh Earnest said during his daily briefing. "The people who hold these offensive views are part of Mr. Trump's base. ... It is too bad that he wasn't able to summon the same kind of patriotism that we saw from Senator McCain, who responded much more effectively and directly when one of his supporters and one of his campaign events seven years ago raised the same kind of false claims."

The man who asked the question, in fact, represents a majority of Trump's supporters who also believe Obama is secretly harboring faith in Islam, according to a CNN/ORC poll conducted earlier this month. That poll found that 54% of Trump supporters believe Obama is a Muslim. Among Republicans nationwide, the poll showed, 43% of Republicans think Obama is Muslim, as do 29% of Americans as a whole. - Read More at CNN

Donald Trump's history of suggesting Obama is a Muslim