Ben Carson Reaching Out to Candidates to Change Debates
Thursday, 29 Oct 2015 03:32 PM
Dr. Ben Carson has lashed out at CNBC for conducting what he called a "gotcha" debate in which the ten Republican presidential candidates were encouraged to "savage" each other.
And, Carson told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview, he plans to huddle with his GOP competitors to change the "silliness" that has invaded the political slugfest.
The CNBC debate gets "probably the lowest mark you can give it," the retired pediatric neurosurgeon-turned-politician said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
"It was a 'gotcha' interview and a 'gotcha' debate more than it was, here are the candidates, we want to make sure that you get a chance to know them and understand what their policies are. The latter, of course, would have been much more helpful."
Carson, the GOP presidential front-runner in several polls, said the cable network, which reports on the stock market and business, tried to stage a debate similar to the first two aired in August and September on Fox News Channel and CNN — but did an inferior job.
"They learned from those two how to do it even worse. What I'm going to do and what I've asked my staff to do is to reach out to the staffs of all the other candidates and let's have a discussion about what debates really should be," Carson said.
"We should be able to influence this process and what we would prefer to have is something where candidates actually have an opportunity to state maybe what their economic policy is for three, four, five minutes.
"And then let the interviewers question them about it and then move onto the next person. That's something that really would be helpful to the people … I mean, we can't continue with this silliness."
Carson said he believes the GOP debates have thus far been tougher on the candidates than the one Democratic debate staged earlier this month.
"What is the point in having ineffective debates like this, which you know when you compare it to the Democrats' debate where they're just lobbing softball questions?" Carson asked.
"Maybe the Republicans, the RNC should be screening better the kinds of people that are organizing these debates and get people who actually want to know what's going on, not people who sort of want to highlight how they can ask a 'gotcha' question."
"I think we need a situation where the voters are actually having something on which to base their vote rather than just propaganda and these debates can be an excellent way to do that if they're organized the right way."
He added that the CNBC event was "so bad," but he applauded "the fact that most of us refused to take the bait and savage other people."
Carson also said he was miffed that moderator Quintanilla tried to tie him to a dubious nutritional supplement company — prompting the audience to boo and jeer.
Carson, who this week displaced Donald Trump as the Republican front-runner in national and Iowa, said campaign contributions have been pouring in since the debate.
"Judging from the response on Facebook and Twitter and the contributions that have come in since then, I think we probably did pretty well," he said.
Asked by Malzberg about his views on Medicare and Medicaid, which some lawmakers want streamlined, Carson responded:
"Well my position is obviously I don't want to deny anyone their Medicaid or Medicare benefits, but there's an enormous amount of money there and $600 billion divided among 48 million people who participate in Medicare, that comes out to $12,500 per person.
"I want to look at what you can do with $12,500. In most cases, you can buy a Cadillac health insurance plan where you don't have to have a bunch of bureaucrats telling you where you can go and what you can do."
Carson is the author of "A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties," written with Candy Carson and published by Sentinel.
And, Carson told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview, he plans to huddle with his GOP competitors to change the "silliness" that has invaded the political slugfest.
The CNBC debate gets "probably the lowest mark you can give it," the retired pediatric neurosurgeon-turned-politician said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
Carson, the GOP presidential front-runner in several polls, said the cable network, which reports on the stock market and business, tried to stage a debate similar to the first two aired in August and September on Fox News Channel and CNN — but did an inferior job.
"They learned from those two how to do it even worse. What I'm going to do and what I've asked my staff to do is to reach out to the staffs of all the other candidates and let's have a discussion about what debates really should be," Carson said.
"We should be able to influence this process and what we would prefer to have is something where candidates actually have an opportunity to state maybe what their economic policy is for three, four, five minutes.
"And then let the interviewers question them about it and then move onto the next person. That's something that really would be helpful to the people … I mean, we can't continue with this silliness."
Carson said he believes the GOP debates have thus far been tougher on the candidates than the one Democratic debate staged earlier this month.
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"Maybe the Republicans, the RNC should be screening better the kinds of people that are organizing these debates and get people who actually want to know what's going on, not people who sort of want to highlight how they can ask a 'gotcha' question."
"I think we need a situation where the voters are actually having something on which to base their vote rather than just propaganda and these debates can be an excellent way to do that if they're organized the right way."
He added that the CNBC event was "so bad," but he applauded "the fact that most of us refused to take the bait and savage other people."
Carson also said he was miffed that moderator Quintanilla tried to tie him to a dubious nutritional supplement company — prompting the audience to boo and jeer.
Carson, who this week displaced Donald Trump as the Republican front-runner in national and Iowa, said campaign contributions have been pouring in since the debate.
"Judging from the response on Facebook and Twitter and the contributions that have come in since then, I think we probably did pretty well," he said.
Asked by Malzberg about his views on Medicare and Medicaid, which some lawmakers want streamlined, Carson responded:
"I want to look at what you can do with $12,500. In most cases, you can buy a Cadillac health insurance plan where you don't have to have a bunch of bureaucrats telling you where you can go and what you can do."
Carson is the author of "A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties," written with Candy Carson and published by Sentinel.
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