Ben Carson raised a lot of money after making controversial comments about Islam

(Image credit: Sean Rayford/Getty Images)

published 24 September 2015

Comments that Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson made about Islam on Sunday, during an appearance on Meet the Press, have been a boon to a super PAC that supports the retired neurosurgeon.

On Monday, the Carson-aligned 2016 Committee sent an email asking that backers show their support for Carson's comments to moderator Chuck Todd that he could not advocate a Muslim becoming president of the United States because Islam isn't compatible with the Constitution, NBC News reports. After 12 hours, 400 people had donated $31,000. "We've never gotten that kind of response," 2016 Committee head John Philip Sousa IV said. "It broke all records."

Carson's campaign sent out an email Wednesday morning with the message that he "will not back down," and communications director Doug Watts said that within two hours, $300,000 had been raised. Carson made a similar statement during a rally at Spring Arbor University in Michigan, telling a crowd of 3,000 that he would not give "all my values away for the sake of political correctness." After Meet the Press aired, several Muslim groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), called on Carson to drop out of the race. Carson's campaign told NBC News that the candidate would like to meet with Muslim-American groups and Islamic scholars sometime over the next two weeks.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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