WASHINGTON—GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson says it’s time to move on from questions about the accuracy of his life story. But Tuesday’s GOP debate makes that unlikely.
The retired neurosurgeon said Sunday that questions about discrepancies in his autobiography are distractions from “much more important” matters facing the country and that he'd discuss any “real” scandal uncovered about his past. He strongly disputed any dishonesty or wrongdoing.
“Every single day, every other day or every week, you know, they’re going to come out with, ‘Well, you said this when you were 13,’ ” Carson said on CBS' “Face the Nation” Sunday.
“The whole point is to distract the populace, to distract me,” he added. “If you’ve got a real scandal, if you’ve got something that’s really important, let’s talk about that.”
Moving on, at least in the short term, is unlikely. The accuracy of Carson’s autobiography has dominated his campaign in the past few days, and more questions are likely during the GOP presidential debate on Tuesday. The scrutiny reflects Carson’s transformation from political outsider to the top of the polls in the unsettled nomination fight, second only to billionaire developer Donald Trump. And in early-voting Iowa, some polls show Carson leading.
Trump tried Sunday to keep the allegations alive.
On several news shows, he mentioned examples from Carson’s autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” about Carson’s bad temper when he was young. Carson claimed that he tried to hit his mother with a hammer and unsuccessfully tried to stab someone. Several times, Trump quoted Carson as describing his younger self as having a “pathological” temper — and then demurred on his own opinion of Carson’s character and veracity.
“I just don’t know. I mean, I’m not involved. I don’t really know,” Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Carson insists no other candidate has received the level of scrutiny that he has. Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether he is being scrutinized more than President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, Carson replied: “Not like this. Not even close.”
Scrutiny of one’s past is par for any major candidate for president. Obama’s citizenship was questioned, including by Trump, and the president later released a birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii. Clinton’s marital dalliances were probed during the 1992 campaign. The Miami Herald staked out then-Sen. Gary Hart’s townhouse in 1987 and caught him in an extramarital affair. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, last month testified about the private email server she kept at her house and used for government business while she was secretary of state.
