Bill O’Reilly shares photos of Barack Obama in traditional Muslim dress he claims are from half-brother Malik’s wedding saying they prove his ‘deep emotional ties to Islam’
- Bill O’Reilly released images of President Barack Obama claiming they were from the Muslim wedding of his half brother Malik
- President Obama was Malik’s best man at his first wedding in 1981 and Malik served as his best man when he married Michelle
- O’Reilly claims the photos were taken in Maryland in the early 1990s
- Fox News host said the pictures prove President Obama has ‘deep emotional ties to Islam’ and is not a ‘devout Christian’
- O’Reilly claims this has ‘hurt the USA’ because Obama has failed to combat ISIS which he calls the ‘Obama administration’s greatest failure’
- A similar set of photos featuring President Obama in the same dress were shared by Malik in 2004 and previously published on DailyMail.com
Bill O’Reilly shared photos of Barack Obama in traditional Islamic dress on his program Wednesday night claiming they were from his half-brother Malik’s wedding.
The Fox News host said it was ‘very difficult’ to verify the exact location of the photographs – a similar set of which were first released back in 2004 by Malik and previously published on DailyMail.com – but claimed they were taken in Maryland in the early 1990s.
‘According to his half-sister, Barack Obama attended his half-brother’s wedding in the early 1990s. Malik Obama was a Muslim,’ said O’Reilly.
‘The Factor has obtained pictures allegedly from that wedding, which we believe was held in Maryland.’
Malik was married in 1981 for the first time and President Obama was his best man at that ceremony. He now has multiple wives.
O’Reilly used the photos in a monologue alleging the President’s ‘deep emotional ties to Islam’ have stopped him effectively combating ISIS while also saying he believes the photos prove that President Obama is not a ‘devout Christian’.
Bill O’Reilly has revealed two photos of Barack Obama claiming they were taken as the President attended his half-brother Malik’s wedding back in the early 90s, saying they show he has ‘an emotional attachment to Islam’
President Obama was Malik’s best man at his first wedding in 1981 and Malik served as his best man when he married Michelle (above at President Obama’s wedding)
He did this while attacking President Obama hours after he revealed he would not be withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, saying: ‘President Obama, as we all know, will not even use the words Islamic terrorism.
‘Again today when telling the nation that America will maintain eight-thousand troops in Afghanistan, the president did not accurately describe the situation there, putting forth that it was more about politics than Islamic terror.’
O’Reilly claims the President Obama’s failure to identify the terrorist threat facing America has allowed ISIS to run amok in the Middle East, a mistake he claims the Commander-in-chief will not acknowledge.
‘There is no question the Obama administration’s greatest failure is allowing the Islamic terror group ISIS to run wild, murdering thousands of innocent people all over the world, including many Muslims,’ said O’Reilly.
‘Mr. Obama has never, never acknowledged that mistake, nor does he define the ISIS threat accurately.
‘That group is killing innocent people in order to impose a radical version of Islam on the world. The jihad is solely based on theology, perverted as it may be.’
Obama’s refusal to use the phrase ‘Islamic terrorism’, preferring instead to say ‘militants’ or simply ‘terrorists’ has long been a sore spot for his Republican detractors, including Donald Trump.
O’Reilly also said of Obama after sharing the photos: ‘I believe he’s a Christian. I’m not one of these guys who says he’s a Muslim. But I don’t think he’s a devout Christian.’
He went on to say during the program: ‘I base my analysis on the fact that in my opinion – and I could be wrong, but I’m not – President Obama’s sympathetic treatment of Muslims put the country in danger because he has not elevated the risks that we have to the level it should be.
‘And he allowed ISIS to be created because of his foolish decision to withdraw troops in Iraq and to pretty much run wild for five years. So another president, angry about the jihad, would not have done that.’
O’Reilly’s guest, Obama: From Promise to Power author David Mendell, jumped in at that point to say: ‘I think President Obama is very sympathetic to all cultures, all religions. He grew up in a multiplicity…’
The host cut him off though to ask: ‘Is that good for a commander in chief to be very sympathetic to all cultures and all beliefs when thousands of people are being murdered?’
O’Reilly then closed out the segment by stating: ‘He’s the commander in chief of the United States, and his main charge is to protect us. It’s not main charge as to be touchy-feely to all different cultures.’
Nothing new: A similar set of photos featuring President Obama in the same dress were shared by Malik in 2004 (above) and previously published on DailyMail.com
Helping hand: Malik said in a 2013 interview that he spoke with his brother about trying to save Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi (above with Malik in an undated photo) when his people turned against him
President Obama has hit back at these criticisms in the past, saying that the row over the phrase is a ‘political distraction’ from the real threat in the Middle East.
He added: ‘If there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists who… we’ve taken off the battlefield.
‘If the implication is that those of us up here and the thousands of people around the country and around the world who are working to defeat ISIL aren’t taking the fight seriously, that’d come as a surprise to those who’ve spent these last 7 1/2 years dismantling al-Qaida in the FATA, for example.
‘[That would surprise] the men and women in uniform who put their lives at risk, and the special forces that I ordered to get [Osama] bin Laden and are now on the ground in Iraq and in Syria. They know full well who the enemy is.’
Malik, 57, also has political ambitions, having run in 2013 as an independent candidate for the governorship of Siaya County in the national elections.
He was defeated in that race.
In a March 2013 interview with the Mail on Sunday, Malik said that he and his brother were close, and he had just seen him in November of the previous year.
‘We are close but don’t live in each other’s pockets. I don’t have to be at every big party. I’ve not seen Michelle in a while,’ said Malik at the time.
‘I saw her and the children at the last inauguration, but it was very busy, so we didn’t have time to talk. I can’t say that I have a relationship with my nieces.’
In that interview Malik complained that he was maligned and misunderstood because he is a Muslim and a black man. He has lived in Washington since 1985 and divides his time between there and Kogelo in Kenya.
‘Having a famous brother has made me a target of hatred, racism and bigotry against my religion. I recently asked Barack what advice he could give me about dealing with all the negativity,’ said Malik.
‘He just laughed and replied, ‘You’re a big boy. You’re my elder brother, you can take it. Anyway, it’s only four more years.”
Meeting the family: Michelle Obama on her first visit to Alego, Kenya (above) prior to marrying her husband
Paying a visit: Obama at his family home in the Kenyan homestead of Alego (l to r: Obama, his grandmother Sarah, sister Auma and stepmother Kezia)
Malik also said that he spoke with his brother about trying to save Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi in 2011 when his people turned against him.
‘I went to see my brother and I said look, this is somebody I know and it’s terrible what is going on. Let’s see if we can talk to him and find some kind of rapprochement. He wasn’t interested,’ said Malik.
‘He didn’t want to know, which was very disappointing. But he did tell me that he shook Gaddafi’s hand when they met at a conference in Rome.’
Malik also said his half-brother was not doing enough for his family in Africa at the time.
‘I’m very proud of my brother, but I would like for him to do a little bit more for the family on this side,’ said Malik.
‘I would like to say he could send some money. I give money when asked. That’s what family is for. We’re not well off, though people think we are.’
Malik was just one in 1959 when his father, Barack Obama Senior, left his wife Kezia to take up a scholarship at the University of Hawaii. Malik’s sister Auma, two years younger, appears to have been conceived when his father was home on holiday. Kezia, now 72, later studied in America and lives in Bracknell, Berkshire in the UK.
In America, Barack Sr met and married Ann Dunham, an anthropologist from Kansas. But soon after she gave birth to the future US President he abandoned her and returned to Kenya.
According to the Miller Center, Obama later said of the experience: ‘I was raised as an Indonesian child and a Hawaiian child and as a black child and as a white child.
‘And so what I benefited from is a multiplicity of cultures that all fed me.’
During that time Obama attended both Muslim and Catholic schools, before returning to live in Hawaii with his grandparents, who were not religious and gave him a secular upbringing.
President Obama praised Malik, who he refers to as Roy, in his memoir Dreams from my Father, writing in one passage about seeing his half-brother at his wedding to Michelle.
‘The person who made me proudest of all, though, was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol,’ wrote President Obama.
He went on to note how Malik ‘looked so dignified in his black African gown with white trim and matching cap that some of our guests mistook him for my father’.
Malik said in his 2013 interview: ‘Some people go on about me being a Muslim, as if it somehow impacts on my brother’s politics. That is my faith, not his, but he respects it.
‘I would describe my relationship with Barack is a normal brotherly one, except that he’s got a country to run. And I think he’s doing a very good job on that score.’