Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont this week lambasted one of President Donald Trump's budget nominees over a post he wrote last year that discussed Christianity and Islam.
As Russell Vought, Trump's pick for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, appeared before the Senate Budget Committee for a confirmation hearing Wednesday, Sanders doggedly questioned him about a January 2016 post he had published by conservative outlet The Resurgent .
In the post, Vought wrote about a controversy involving a professor at his alma mater, Wheaton College .
"Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned," Vought wrote.
Sanders – an independent who last year ran for the Democratic presidential nomination and who serves as the committee's ranking member – asked Vought whether he thought the post was Islamophobic. Vought said no and attempted to defend his writing against Sanders' repeated questions, stating, "I believe in a Christian set of principles based on my faith."
But Sanders was not appeased.
"Are you suggesting that all of those people stand condemned?" he asked Vought. "What about Jews? They stand condemned, too?"
"Senator, I wrote a post based on being a Christian and attending a Christian school that has a statement of faith that speaks clearly with regard to the centrality of Jesus Christ in salvation," Vought said at the end of the exchange.
Some have said Sanders' line of questioning pushed the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution, which states "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust of the United States."
Russell Moore, who has been a vocal Trump critic and is president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, called Sanders' comments "breathtakingly audacious and shockingly ignorant – both of the Constitution and of basic Christian doctrine.
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by Megan Trimble ... an associate editor of social media for the News division at U.S. News & World Report.
Link to article ---> Bernie Sanders Blasts Trump Nominee
