Fox News host Andrea Tantaros stepped into well-debunked territory about President Obama purportedly having once been a Muslim. Tantaros said on her radio program that Muslims view ex-Muslims poorly, and “some have said that's President Obama, who even writes in his own book that he went to a Muslim school, he had a Muslim stepfather, he was educated in the Muslim faith, and now we have an effort by so many on the left and many in the media to ignore radical Islam.”
In reality, as his website notes, President Obama “has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.” Conservative media have spent years promoting the claim that Obama is or was a Muslim to attack him and his policies. Fox News and its commentators have repeatedly questioned the president's faith and promoted falsehoods about Obama's religious background, including the false claim that he attended a “madrassa.”
From the April 25 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Andrea Tantaros Show:
BILL MAHER (CLIP): There's only one faith that kills you, or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith. An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing. Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. So, you know, I'm just saying, let's keep it real.
TANTAROS: “An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing.” Well, because they can give you an inside look. And actually in the Muslim faith, that is worse, being an ex-Muslim because you've turned on the religion. They talk about war on the infidel, but what about the war on the apostate, the person who knows the Muslim faith and then turns from it. Is Bill Maher right? Some have said that's President Obama, who even writes in his own book that he went to a Muslim school, he had a Muslim stepfather, he was educated in the Muslim faith, and now we have an effort by so many on the left and so many in the media to ignore radical Islam, let alone -- I mean they try not to offend them, god forbid we teach about Islam in our schools so people know the history of it and our kids don't tolerate things like terrorista license plates. But now they're ignoring the ties to radical Islam. You know, George Carlin famously used to joke, the comedian, about the seven words you can't say on air? Well now Islam and Muslim are two of those words that you can add to the list.