Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Sunday criticized Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s assertion that a Muslim should not be president of the United States.
“You know, this is the year 2015,” Sanders told reporters in New Hampshire on Sunday, according to the Washington Post. “You judge candidates for president not on their religion, not on the color of their skin, but on their ideas on what they stand for. … I was very disappointed in Dr. Carson’s statement.”
Sanders referenced President John F. Kennedy and a time when Americans did not believe Catholics should be president.
“For a long, long time in the history of America, there were people saying, ‘Oh, we don’t want a Catholic to be president of the United States,'” he said, according to the Post. “Then John F. Kennedy became president in 1960. And then people said, ‘Oh, we don’t want a black guy, an African American, to be president of the United States.’ Then finally Barack Obama became president of the United States.”
During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Carson said he wouldn’t “advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.” And later on Sunday, in an interview with The Hill, Carson stood by his remarks.
“I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” he told The Hill. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”