Sanders hits Trump nominee who called Islam ‘a deficient theology’

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday derided Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), over his past remarks on Islam.

Sanders specifically hit Vought’s January 2016 article for The Resurgent, which was called “Wheaton College and the Preservation of Theological Clarity.” 

“Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology,” Vought wrote. “They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ his Son, and they stand condemned.”

Vought’s article was addressing a controversy over a Wheaton professor who said Christians and Muslims worship the same deity.

{mosads}Sanders blasted Vought over the piece during a Senate Budget Committee nomination hearing Wednesday.

“[It’s] indefensible, it is hateful and Islamophobic, and an insult to over a billion Muslims throughout the world,” Sanders told Vought.

Vought defended his article, but Sanders continued to press the nominee over another article in which he wrote that Muslims “stand condemned.”

“Are you suggesting that all of those people stand condemned?” Sanders asked Vought. “What about Jews? They stand condemned, too?”

Vought responded that he respects all people and that his article for a conservative blog last year was penned as a Christian.

Vought is the former vice president of the conservative Heritage Action for America, and a confirmation vote for his nomination is still needed.

— This report was updated on June 8 at 6:25 a.m.