Ha! I’ve had similar encounters — only my answer is, he’s a MARXIST.
His “friends” that he now denies hold the most extreme possible leftist views. He himself was recognized by the National Journal as the most left-wing US senator, in 2007.
Take a careful look at Black Liberation Theology — it’s a black-racist variation on Liberation Theology, which is fundamentally Marxist in its credo. He listened intently to that nonsense for 20 years.
B. Hussein’s positions are indistinguishable from someone whose core belief is:
“From each according to ability, to each according to need.”
His breathtakingly inept response in the ABC-moderated debate to the question about capital gains was a case in point.
The purpose of the tax was not to increase revenues for the state and to help the needy (the usual liberal line). He couldn't go there because the liberal moderator had pointed out that increasing the tax lowered revenue.
He went straight to the Marxist rationale. The purpose was to promote "fairness" by levelling society (even if it meant impoverishing everyone).