Ben Carson on Donald Trump: ‘He has some major defects, there’s no question about it’
Carson endorses Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on March 11. (Photo: Carlo Allegri/Reuters)
Dr. Ben Carson continues to express his strangely tepid endorsement of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
“He has some major defects, there’s no question about it — just like the rest of us,” Carson said in a radio interview on Sunday. “But I think he is willing to listen to other people. He may not say that publicly because there is a humility issue there that could perhaps use some polishing.”
The retired neurosurgeon, who formally endorsed the Republican frontrunner last month after abandoning his own GOP campaign, said America needs bold leadership.
“Everybody believes that we are weak, we are weak on the world stage, we’re not doing things that make sense economically,” Carson explained to host John Catsimatidis. “Right now what we need is somebody who can help restore the confidence of the American people.”
So is Trump that person?
“He’s probably the person,” Carson said. “Are there better people? Probably. But one of the things we have to do is we have broaden our pool from which we select our leaders.”
Carson has been criticized for throwing his support behind Trump, who once compared the soft-spoken surgeon to a child molester.
But in an interview with Yahoo News, Carson dismissed the comparison as part of the nominating process.
“He said that it was political,” Carson said of Trump’s child molester remark. “He was concerned about the fact that he couldn’t shake me. I understand politics, and particularly the politics of personal destruction, and you have to admit to some degree that it did work. A lot of people believed him.”
“It’s not really about me,” Carson continued. “If it were about me, yes, I would be outraged. I would say in no way can I support this, but it’s not about me. It’s about America.” Carson continued, “Unfortunately we live in a society where that kind of thing works, and people use things that work.”
In Sunday’s radio interview, Carson praised Trump’s business acumen — and his children.
“I always tend to judge a person on their life,” Carson said. “And when I look at what he has built — albeit his father left him a lot of money — but he has built a very successful [business] and hired thousands of people, and it’s very hard to find any of his employees — anybody — who have anything bad to say about him. You can find a lot of them who have praised him. And also if you look at his children and the way they’ve turned out… I know a lot of people who are very wealthy whose kids are total wrecks. All of that says quite a bit about a person.”
