Lou Dobbs has claimed on his Fox Business show that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is the victim of a “globalist” conspiracy by the “Mormon mafia,” and he has derided former GOP nominee Mitt Romney for refusing to support Trump, saying maybe it’s because he is a Mormon and “getting visions.”

Dobbs tweeted last night that Evan McMullin -- an independent candidate for president who is Mormon and polling strongly in Utah, which has a large Mormon population -- is “nothing but a Globalist, Romney and Mormon Mafia Tool.” Dobbs’ bigoted reference to a “Mormon Mafia” was widely derided.

Dobbs hasn’t expressed such bigotry only on Twitter. He highlighted the “Mormon mafia” as one of the many foes Trump is “contending against” in his presidential run during the October 9 edition of his Fox Business show:

During the August 11 edition of his Fox Business show, he claimed that “the Mormon church appears to be involved” in Trump’s weakness in Utah polls. He explained: “There is a globalist view, a perspective on the part of the Mormon church. Mitt Romney has addressed it, others. Again, now we've got an independent candidate who is himself a Mormon. These are not coincidences. These appear to be an organized and energetic effort to disrupt Donald Trump's candidacy.”

During the segment, Fox contributor Eboni Williams claimed that in a speech, Trump had been “really not so thinly veiling a callout to kind of the Mormon mafia,” which Williams said included Romney and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT). Watch:

On his May 26 broadcast, Dobbs referenced Romney’s refusal to support Trump and said, “What is wrong with this man? I mean, is he getting -- he's Mormon, right? ... I mean, is he getting visions or something that nobody else can dial up?”

In 2006, Dobbs criticized “the Mormon church” for purportedly seeking to encourage “as many of Mexico's citizens as they possibly could attract to the state of Utah, irrespective of the cost to taxpayers,” drawing a denial from the church. Dobbs left CNN in 2009 following months of controversy over his promotion of the racist conspiracy that President Obama was not born in the United States, but he was hired by Fox Business soon after.  

Dina Radtke contributed research to this piece.