Christie pans Trump for not responding to birther at rally

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going after fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump for not denouncing a Trump supporter who said President Obama is “not even an American” and is a Muslim.

{mosads}Christie said on NBC’s “Today” on Friday that “if somebody at one of my town-hall meetings said that, I would correct them and I would say, ‘The President’s a Christian and he was born in this country.’”

The governor said Trump has an “obligation” to set the record straight.

“I’ll tell you what I would do, and I wouldn’t have permitted that if someone brought it up at a town-hall meeting of mine, I would have said: ‘No, listen. Before we answer, let’s clear some things up for the rest of the audience.’ And I think you have an obligation as a leader to do that,” Christie continued.

Trump did not directly address the man’s question at the meeting.

“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.”

Democratic presidential primary front-runner Hillary Clinton also took a shot at Trump’s passive response.

“Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS& hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong,” the former first lady tweeted on Thursday. “Cut it out.”

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fl.) said in a statement on Thursday that Trump’s “racism knows no bounds.”

And Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) denounced Trump on “CBS This Morning.”

The Trump campaign said the media is blowing the story out of proportion.

“The media want to make this issue about Obama. The bigger issue is that Obama is waging a war against Christianity in this country,” Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told The Washington Post on Thursday.

Trump was a driving force behind the “birther” conspiracy theory, which called into question Obama’s citizenship and legitimacy to hold the office of president.