Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said he does not think a Muslim should be president.
“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that,” he said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Carson was asked whether a president’s faith matters, and he replied, “I guess it depends on what the faith is,” adding that it should be consistent with American values and principles. When he was asked specifically about whether Islam is consistent with American values, he said that he does not believe it is.
In a CNN/ORC poll conducted earlier this month, Carson was the second favorite Republican candidate after Donald Trump with 19% of the vote. His latest comments are sure to set off criticism.
On Thursday, an audience member at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire claimed that President Obama was a Muslim and that he was not an American. Trump neglected to correct him, eliciting criticism for failing to do so. Trump responded on Twitter by saying he is under no obligation to defend the president.
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