Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Friday said he was initially uncomfortable when assigned a surgeon with a foreign name. Cain expressed his concern during an appearance at the Holy Land Experience, a Biblically-themed amusement park in Orlando, telling the audience that a surgeon who had once treated him for cancer was named "Dr. Abdallah."
"I said to his physician assistant, I said, 'That sounds foreign, not that I had anything against foreign doctors, but it sounded too foreign," said Cain to the audience, according to Yahoo! News. "She said, 'He's from Lebanon.' Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon."
"Hallelujah!" said Cain. "Thank God!"
Cain said in a recent GQ interview that he thought a majority of Muslims in America held "extremist views." In May, he said that he would not allow a Muslim to work in his cabinet because of "creeping Shariah law," but later apologized to Muslim leaders for his remarks. In October, he clarified his remarks on "The Tonight Show" by saying he would not "appoint a Jihadist" to his administration.
Cain has spoken previously about being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in his liver and his colon in 2006. At a Republican presidential debate, he said he would have been dead if "Obamacare" had been in place. The fact-checking project PolitiFact ruled his claim false. He said recently that five years later he is "100 percent, cancer-free."
