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The Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson has said no Muslim should be president of the United States of America. In an interview with NBC for broadcast on Sunday morning, the retired neurosurgeon said: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Carson’s discussion with Meet the Press host Chuck Todd centred around controversy that turned out this week when Donald Trump failed to correct an audience member at a New Hampshire campaign rally who said President Obama was a Muslim. The audience member also appeared to advocate the forcible removal of Muslims from the US.

On Saturday, in a series of tweets on the subject, Trump defended himself and said: “Am I morally obligated to guard the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don’t think so!”

He also addressed the issue in an appearance before an evangelical audience in Iowa, at which he brandished a Bible and said: “You realise, I’m better than you thought.” In such circles, Trump has lost some support to Carson.

In his NBC interview, Carson was asked: “So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t, I do not.”

Article VI of the US constitution states: “No religious Test shall ever be commanded as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” The first amendment to the constitution says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”

Carson, a Christian, is a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In October, he will publish a new script, written with his wife Candy Carson and entitled A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties. In publicity material released by Penguin, Random House, Carson is quoted as saying: “I believe that making a difference starts with understanding our amazing founding document, the US Constitution.

As somebody who has performed brain surgery thousands of times, he said he can assure Americans that the Constitution isn’t brain surgery. He adds that he and his wife wrote the script to help defend the constitution from those who misinterpret and undermine it”.

Carson did have a constituency to speak to, however. In a recent poll, 38% of voters stated they would not vote for a Muslim president.

The Ohio governor John Kasich, who is polling an average of 2.5%, enough for 10th place out of 16, was also asked by NBC if he would ever have a problem with a Muslim becoming president.

Kasich, one of the more moderate candidates in the GOP field, also had to field a question about whether he was a Republican at all. He did not say he would have a problem with a Muslim president, but nor did he dismiss the question.

“You know, I mean, that’s such a hypothetical question,” Kasich said. “The answer is, at the end of the day, you’ve got to go through the rigours, and people will look at everything. But, for me, the most important thing about being president is you have leadership skills, you know what you’re doing, and you can help fix this country and raise this country. Those are the qualifications that matter to me.”