Mere days after a terrorist attack in the Istanbul airport killed at least 44 people, Donald Trump asked a Turkish journalist who was in the audience of a rally in Denver whether he was “friend or foe.” It’s a question he often poses in his speeches, but this time it raised more than a few eyebrows. It all began when the presumptive Republican nominee was listing countries with which he said the United States could strike better agreements. That’s when someone in the audience yelled out: “Turkey.”

Trump looked at journalist Yusuf Serce directly: “Are you from Turkey, sir? Good, congratulations.” He then turned to the audience: “I think he’s friend. Are you friend or foe? I think he’s friend.” Trump went on to mention how he had investments in Turkey before chastising the country for not doing enough to fight terrorism. “Turkey, by the way, should be fighting ISIS,” Trump said.

“I just wanted to let him say what he wants to say,” Serce wrote on Twitter.