Bernie Sanders’s press secretary on Wednesday seemingly compared calls for the 78-year-old senator to release additional medical records to the racist birther conspiracy theory Donald Trump and others leveled at Barack Obama before and during his presidency. “What you’re seeing right now is really reminiscent of some of the kind of smear, kind of skepticism campaigns that have been run against a lot of different candidates in the past,” national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray told CNN, “questioning where they’re from, aspects of their lineage, et cetera, et cetera.”

The remarks came after Sanders, who suffered a heart attack in October, said during a CNN town hall on Tuesday that he would not be releasing any additional medical records. “I think we have released a detailed report,” Sanders said, “and I’m comfortable with what we have done.” He added, “If you think I’m not in good health, come out with me on the campaign trail and I’ll let you introduce me to the three or four rallies a day that we do.”

Sanders briefly left the campaign trail last fall after experiencing what was initially described as chest pain at a rally; after a period of silence in the immediate aftermath of his hospitalization, his campaign confirmed he’d had stents inserted following a heart attack. The medical emergency raised questions in some quarters about Sanders’s fitness to run for and potentially serve as president, but his campaign attempted to downplay concerns, releasing a video of the candidate hitting baseballs and supportive letters from doctors. “You are in good health currently and you have been engaging vigorously in the rigors of your campaign, travel, and other scheduled activities without any limitation,” Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician on Capitol Hill, said in one of the letters.

Asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper if that was enough, Sanders replied that he had released as much information as his fellow candidates. “I don’t think we will [release additional details],” he said. His press secretary doubled down Wednesday morning, going so far as to point fingers elsewhere. “It’s really telling, given that none of the same concern is being demonstrated for [Mike Bloomberg], who is the same age as Bernie Sanders, who has suffered heart attacks in the past,” Gray said. That claim appeared to be false; Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said it was an “absolute lie” that 78-year-old former New York mayor had ever suffered a heart attack. (Bloomberg takes a blood thinner to treat atrial fibrillation, according to a letter from the candidate’s doctor released in December.) Gray walked back the claim—“I misspoke,” she tweeted—but defended comparing questions about Sanders’s health to bogus questions about Obama’s birthplace. “If you trade in smears that ignore clearly identifiable facts and evidence, you’re gonna have to be honest about the bedfellows you’ve chosen,” Gray wrote.