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.
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.
