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.
His comments 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."
"Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out. -H"
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."
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