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The Rev. Franklin Graham said he might support real estate mogul Donald Trump as his candidate of choice in the 2012 presidential election.

Graham, whose family has close ties to past presidents, said when Trump began interjecting himself in the conversation he thought it was a joke, but “the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, ‘You know, maybe the guy’s right.’”

When asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” if he would choose the “Celebrity Apprentice” star as his candidate, Graham said “Sure, yeah. Sure.”

And although he has traveled with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, he predicted she will not launch a bid for the White House.

“I don’t think Sarah is going to… I think she likes speaking on the issues,” Graham said. “I don’t see her running for president.”

Would he support her if she did run?

“It depends on who the other candidates are,” Graham said.

Graham, who is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, said President Obama could silence the birther movement by producing his birth certificate.

“I don’t know why he can’t produce that,” Graham said. “It’s an issue that looks like he could, he could answer pretty quickly.”

In 2008, the Obama campaign released a copy of the certificate. News organizations and the Annenberg Fact Check Project saw the raised seal and signature. The state of Hawaii has certified he was born there.

When asked about the debate over the president’s religion, Graham said Obama has told him he’s a Christian.

“But the debate comes, what is a Christian? For him, going to church means he’s a Christian,” Graham said. “A membership doesn’t make you a Christian … God is the only one who knows his heart.”

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Republicans will suffer electorally if they continue to fan the flames of the so-called "birther" debate instead of focusing on the economy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Sunday.

"I think the Republicans are making a terrible mistake in making this a big issue," Bloomberg, an independent, said on "Fox News Sunday." "We have the deficit. We have the economy. Those are the things that the public cares about."

"If the Republican Party doesn't start addressing that, they will lose and they deserve to," he added.

Even though he called Donald Trump, who has become a champion of the birther movement, a "friend" and "New York icon," Bloomberg wouldn't say whether or not he takes Trump's presidential flirtations seriously.

"Look, anybody can run for president if you're 35 and an American citizen and born here," Bloomberg said, before adding that President Barack Obama was born in the United States too.

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Donald Trump's affirmation that he's voted in every general election disagrees with actual voting records, according to a spokeswoman with the New York City Board of Elections.

“I voted in every general election,” Trump told CNN affiliate NY1 by phone Friday. “I have records that I voted and so does the Board of Elections. … I signed in at every election.”

However, voting records obtained by the board of elections show that Trump did not vote in the 2002 general election, according to Valerie L. Vazquez, director of communications at the board.

The records also show that Trump skipped at least three presidential primaries and two mayoral primaries over the past 25 years, Vazquez said Friday.

Vazquez has found voting records by Trump for only two party primaries – the 1989 GOP mayoral primary and last year’s GOP primary for several statewide races, including governor and U.S. Senate.

Vazquez said she was able to obtain the voting records using both Trump’s voting bus cards, used prior to 1992 to document a voter’s activity, as well as through the BOE's electronic records database, used from 1992 to the present. Both the bus cards and electronic records provide the ballot time and whether it was cast on site or by absentee vote. Records also showed Trump has changed his party registration three times over the past 20 years.

Vazquez was confident that her records are complete, saying there is not a loophole that would hide a possible vote.

But when asked by NY1 Friday about the discrepancy presented by information from the election board and his claim, Trump said, "You're going to pay a big price because you're wrong."

A call to Trump for comment was not immediately returned.

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