Neurosurgeon Ben Carson should withdraw from the presidential race for his comments that a Muslim shouldn’t be president a prominent Muslim-American group said Sunday.
“I think his remarks should be repudiated by everyone on the political spectrum and that he should withdraw,” Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Islamic advocacy group, told the Washington Examiner on Sunday.
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Carson, who is third in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings, spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday and said that he wouldn’t “advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”
Hooper said that Carson’s comments were unconstitutional according to Article Six of the Constitution, which forbids a religious test as a requirement for qualification to any public office.
He added that he is constantly dismayed by the “Islamophobia [exhibited] by the right wing of the political spectrum.”
However, Carson’s comments go “way beyond the pale from anything I have heard,” said Hooper.
Carson’s comments come a few days after front-runner Donald Trump refused to challenge an audience member’s assertion that President Obama is a Muslim, which the president is not.
“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd also asked Trump on Sunday on whether or not he would be comfortable with a Muslim president.
“Would I be comfortable? I don’t know if we have to address it right now,” he said.