Bill O’Reilly devoted an entire segment on his Wednesday show to discussing President Barack Obama’s “emotional attachment to the Muslim world,” which, he claimed, “has hurt the USA.”
O’Reilly charged that the president was unable to “accurately” define the threat posed by Islamic State militants because he had personal ties to Muslims and once went to an Islamic wedding.
“The president of the United States does not define the terror issue clearly,” the Fox News host said. “Here’s why. Barack Obama’s father, who abandoned his family, was a Muslim who eventually turned atheist. Then his mother married another Muslim, moving Barry to Indonesia where he was exposed to the Islamic world.”
O’Reilly went on to present details, which he admitted were “very difficult to verify at this point,” of Obama’s attendance at his Muslim half-brother’s wedding, where he may or may not have been the best man.
“What we can tell you with certainty is that Barack Obama has deep emotional ties to Islam,” O’Reilly said.
He said that the president should take pains to “call out those who abuse the Muslim faith” and “make defeating the jihad a central issue,” something that Obama has done on numerous occasions.
After the recent mass shooting terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, Obama said that he has been working to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks since taking office in 2008 but cautioned against playing into ISIL’s narrative by adapting us vs. them rhetoric.
“Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away,” he said of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism.” “This is a political distraction.”
O’Reilly is far from the first conservative figure to suggest that Obama, a Protestant, has personal ties to Islam. Donald Trump first hinted that Obama may secretly be Muslim in 2011, and reacted to the Orlando terrorist attack by circulating a conspiracy theory that the president was secretly in league with terrorists.
