Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson said Friday it would have been easy for Sen. Ted Cruz’s camp to check with Mr. Carson’s campaign before circulating news reports Monday that said the retired doctor was taking a break from the campaign trail.
“That was a very unethical thing to do,” Mr. Carson said on ABC’s “The View,” speaking from New Hampshire. “It would have taken them seconds to verify whether that was true or not.”
“So obviously someone wanted to take advantage of the situation. They very quickly disseminated information to the different sites saying that I was dropping out and that you should vote for someone else,” said Mr. Carson, who finished in fourth place in the Iowa caucuses.
Mr. Cruz has apologized to Mr. Carson for the flap, saying his team should have sent around a follow-up statement from Mr. Carson’s campaign. The Carson campaign clarified that Mr. Carson was not, in fact, suspending his campaign, but rather going home to get a fresh set of clothes.
Businessman Donald Trump, who finished second, says it’s evidence that Mr. Cruz stole a win in Iowa.
“You know, I don’t think that this is a very difficult investigation to figure out,” Mr. Carson said. “The real question is, is this what we accept now? Is this standard procedure in America? Do we just brush that under the rug and say, eh, that’s just the way things are? What difference does it make?”
“Or do we have higher standards than that? Because that will determine what kind of society we’re going to be,” he said.
“I just think that anybody who accepts this kind of behavior and doesn’t feel that there’s anything that needs to be done about it has a different standard of ethics than I do,” Mr. Carson said.
Mr. Carson also defended his decision to get fresh clothes.
“I heard people saying, ’What’s wrong with Carson? They have clothes in New Hampshire. He can go and buy some more suits and some more shirts,’” Mr. Carson said Friday. “Well see, that’s not the way I grew up. I grew up to preserve what I have. I don’t just throw something in the garbage and buy a new suit. Maybe some people grew up that way. I don’t.”
Mr. Carson also said the announcement this week that his campaign is cutting back on staff had been a long time in the making.
“[We] decided to announce it after the Iowa caucus because people would be saying that we were giving up,” he said. “When you find a problem, you have to correct it.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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