The New York Times is standing by its reporting on 2016 GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson’s supposed struggles with foreign policy, despite pushback from the retired neurosurgeon’s campaign.
“Two of [Carson’s] top advisers” told the Times that the Republican candidate is having trouble mastering details regarding national security issues and the many ongoing crises in the Middle East.
One “top adviser,” former CIA agent Duane R. Clarridge, actually told Times reporter Trip Gabriel that, “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.”
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The former intelligence official said Carson requires weekly foreign policy briefings so “we can make him smart.”
Carson’s team was not at all amused by these remarks, and they responded Tuesday by distancing the candidate from Clarridge.
“Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national security matters from former military and state department officials. He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country,” Carson’s campaign said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
“Mr. Clarridge’s input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson’s top advisors. For the New York Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic practices,” the statement added.
The Republican candidate’s campaign fell silent when it was asked by the Examiner to explain where the Times may have gotten the idea that Clarridge is a “top adviser” to Carson. But the Times said Tuesday evening that Carson’s own campaign referred them to the former CIA agent.
“It was Ben Carson’s closest adviser, Armstrong Williams, who recommended that we talk to Mr. Clarridge and described Mr. Clarridge as a ‘mentor’ to Mr. Carson on foreign policy,” Time senior editor of politics Carolyn Ryan said in a statement provided to the Examiner.
“Mr. Williams also gave us Mr. Clarridge’s phone number. Mr. Clarridge picked up the phone and our reporter, Trip Gabriel, conducted a very straightforward interview with him,” the statement added. “Mr. Clarridge was the only adviser whose name was given to us by Armstrong Williams.”
Williams himself conceded later in an interview with Bloomberg News that he did indeed refer the Times to Clarridge.
Carson’s campaign did not respond to additional requests for comment from the Examiner.
