Republican presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Monday that President Obama is to blame for GOP rival Ben Carson’s comment about Muslims.

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, said on Sunday that, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” comments he has stood by despite the criticism he’s received.

On Fox News, Cruz defended Carson.

“I like Ben Carson. I think Ben is fantastic. I think a lot of people are just using this as an opportunity to smack him with a stick. My view is straightforward,” Cruz said. “The Constitution says there shall be no religious test for holding public office, and I’m a constitutionalist, but I think this whole noise is obscuring the broader question.”

“The broader question, and what I think Ben was trying to get at, is what are the consequences been in the last six and a half years of the Obama presidency?” Cruz stated.

Cruz went on to bring up comments Obama made at a prayer breakfast earlier this year.

“And President Obama gave a speech. I was sitting at the prayer breakfast where he said, ‘listen, yes, ISIS is committing acts of terrorism but Christians and Jews have committed acts of terror as well’ and invoked the Crusades and the Inquisition,” Cruz said on Fox. “Last I checked the Crusades ended 900 years ago. I don’t think it’s asking too much to ask this President to stay in the current millennia, and the reason I said it’s being an apologist is that argument is the exact same argument that the terrorists use.”

Cruz had earlier said that it would be unconstitutional to prevent a Muslim running for President.

“Under the Constitution, there can be no religious test for holding public office. What there can be a test on is public policy views. You look at President Obama…” Cruz continued. “He has led an assault on religious liberty and particularly an assault on Christians.”