Carson: 'I'm Not Going Anywhere,' Will Stay in Presidential Race

Ben Carson said he’s “absolutely” been offered cash and political support to drop out of the presidential race, but told Fox on Sunday that he’s staying in because “millions of my supporters are saying, ‘Please don’t give in, please give in to the system. Please fight for us.'”

“And I’m going to do that,” Carson said.

The pediatric neurosurgeon is polling at about 9 percent nationwide, ahead only of Ohio Gov. John Kasich. He got 4.8 percent of the vote in last week’s Nevada caucus.

“You know, the machine in Washington is extremely complicated and complex. It is corrupt. That’s one of the reasons that I’m running. People say that’s just the way it is and we just have to accept that,” Carson said. “I don’t think we have to accept that. I think there is such a thing as right and wrong. I think there are values and principles that made this into a great nation. As we continue to decline because we’re giving away all of those things for political correctness and political power, I’m just hoping and praying that we will wake up.”

Pressed on his justification for staying in the race, Carson said “the justification is that I have millions of followers.”

“And that’s the reason that I got in the race in the first place. They say, ‘Please don’t drop out.’ They are continuing to support me,” he said. “You know, last week, we had our biggest 24-hour fund raising period since the campaign started. They’re not going anywhere. Therefore I’m not going anywhere either.”

Carson said he wants to fix “a ridiculous tax structure” — make it “truly fair, flat, get rid of deductions and loopholes, no double taxation.”

“We re-incentivize the corporate tax rate particularly overseas and bring that money back here,” he continued. “Those kinds of things will explode the economy because there’s trillions of dollars sitting on the sideline, because the environment is not one that is conducive to investment. That’s what we need to think about. Entrepreneurial risk taking and capital investment, those are the fuels for that economic engine.”

“…So, then along comes Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton talking about the income gap. And they say it’s those evil rich people. It’s not the evil rich people. It’s the evil government that continues to drive these debts to a level that it’s destroying our economy.”