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G.O.P. Field Wrestles With Questions on Islam and the Presidency
Donald J. Trump on Thursday in Rochester, N.H., where his answer to a question set off a storm.Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Faith and politics intersected on Sunday when discussions of how Donald J. Trump handled a question about President Obama’s religion evolved into an awkward debate over whether a Muslim could ever be commander in chief.

Several Republican presidential candidates offered halting responses to the question when it was posed to them on Sunday talk shows, highlighting the difficulty the party faces in attracting new constituencies while appealing to its core supporters. The dynamic also underscores the challenge Mr. Trump has brought to the campaign by igniting controversies that other candidates must address.

The issue was stirred last week when Mr. Trump did not correct an attendee at a rally in New Hampshire who asserted that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.

In response to criticism in the subsequent days, Mr. Trump, who spearheaded the “birther” movement to investigate Mr. Obama’s nationality, said it was not his job to defend the president.

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G.O.P. Field Wrestles With Questions on Islam and the Presidency

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But should being a Muslim matter at all?

Continue reading the main story Interactive Graphic Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? History suggests that each party’s eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the top two or three positions, as measured by endorsements, fund-raising and polling. G.O.P. Field Wrestles With Questions on Islam and the Presidency OPEN Interactive Graphic

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Trump said he could envision a day when a Muslim was president, but he would not say how comfortable he was with the idea. However, Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has been running close with Mr. Trump in several polls, was explicit in his opposition to a Muslim being president.

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” Mr. Carson said on the same program. “I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Mr. Carson went on to explain that he thinks Islam is not “consistent” with the Constitution. He did allow that he might support a Muslim as a member of Congress in certain cases.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations repudiated Mr. Carson’s remarks as anti-American and antithetical to the Constitution, which does not allow religion to be a qualification for those seeking elected office. The Muslim civil rights group called on Mr. Carson to withdraw from the race.

The subject quickly became a new and uncomfortable test for Mr. Carson’s other rivals for the Republican nomination.

When asked if a president’s faith should matter, Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio said, “I don’t know about that.” Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said the question should be more about policy than religion, but he suggested that the idea of a Muslim president would be difficult.

Continue reading the main story

“I try to see that as a separate thing, someone’s religion,” Mr. Paul said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I just think it’s hard for us. We were attacked by people who were all Muslim.”

Democrats pounced, accusing Republicans of validating discrimination by doubting whether a Muslim could hold the highest elected office.

“It’s hard to understand what’s so difficult about supporting an American citizen’s right to run for president, but unsurprisingly, this left Republicans scratching their heads,” said Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “Of course a Muslim, or any other American citizen, can run for president.”

The foray into identity politics comes as Pope Francis prepares to visit the United States this week, and as Republicans wait to see how last week’s debate may have shifted the race’s dynamics.

A CNN/ORC poll released on Sunday showed that Mr. Trump retained his lead nationally but that it had slipped after a mixed debate performance. The survey also found that Carly Fiorina had surged into second place in the Republican field and that the prospects of Senator Marco Rubio of Florida were improving. The prospects of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin continued to dim.

Conspiracy theories about whether Mr. Obama is secretly a Muslim who was born in Kenya have lurked since he first ran for president. While polls show many Republicans think that is true, it is an issue that the party’s establishment would like to move beyond. Some Republicans seeking to occupy the White House have left the door open for questions about the president’s faith, while others, such as former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mr. Rubio, have sought to close the door on the matter.

“He’s born in the United States; he’s a Christian,” Mr. Rubio said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” “He’s the president of the United States for the next year and a half, and we’re going to move on.”

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