*Donald Trump’s campaign is trying to distance the GOP candidate from his former butler after he ranted on Facebook Thursday that he wants President Barack Obama to be killed.
Anthony Senecal, who served as Trump’s butler for 17 years and now takes groups on tours of the mogul’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, wrote in a Facebook post Wednesday that Obama “should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent in his first term,” according to Mother Jones, which first reported on Senecal’s post.
Reached for comment by CNN on Thursday, Senecal, 84, confirmed he wrote the post, but disputed one point, “I think I said hung.”
“Either way, I don’t care. Hanging, shooting — I’d prefer he’d be hung from the portico of the White House, or as I call it, the white mosque,” Senecal told CNN in a phone interview Thursday. “Does it sound like I’m nuts? Because I’m not,” he said. “I’ve just gotten fed up with him (Obama).”
Trump’s campaign disavowed the “horrible statements” in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
“Tony Senecal has not worked at Mar-a-Lago for years, but nevertheless we totally and completely disavow the horrible statements made by him regarding the President,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said.
Secret Service, which investigates threats against the President, said the agency “is aware of this matter and will conduct the appropriate investigation.”
Senecal, who detailed his role in Trump’s sleeping patterns, food preferences and pet peeves for the New York Times in March, said that he has never discussed his political views of Obama with Trump.
“These are my ideas,” he said. “They have nothing to do with Mr. Trump.”
Senecal most recently saw Trump about one month ago, and said he spoke briefly with him about his successful presidential campaign, which Senecal enthusiastically supports.
Like dozens of Trump supporters CNN has interviewed at Trump rallies across the country, Senecal expressed an intense dislike and hatred for Muslims, whom Senecal referred to repeatedly as “muzzies.”
Senecal also claimed erroneously that Obama had ended National Prayer Day in the United States — a false notion circulated in email chains by some right-wing conspiracy theorists.
Senecal also suggested Obama is a Muslim and is “jamming the muzzies down my throat.”
Trump’s longtime butler said he agreed with the now-presumptive Republican nominee’s call for banning foreign Muslims from entering the United States. “Common sense,” Senecal said.
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