Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson encouraged members of the media to stand “on the side of the people,” saying if the nation goes off the fiscal cliff, reporters are going along with it.
“I am just so tickled with the media. I mean, these guys, they just don’t get it and the interesting thing is the media is the only business in America protected by the United States Constitution. And there was a reason that they were protected; it was because they were supposed to be on the side of the people,” Carson said at the Values Voter Summit in Washington.
“They weren’t supposed to pick and choose which side they were on because that distorts the entire system. And we should hope and pray that one day they come to understand that if the nation goes off the cliff they’re going off with it. Maybe they will wake up and begin to understand what is going on,” he added.
The retired neurosurgeon explained that the media twisted his answer to a question about whether or not he would support a Muslim for president.
Carson said he recently went back and forth with an unnamed commentator who told him, “But you said that someone who was of Islamic faith and a Muslim could not be president of the United States.”
In response, Carson told the commentator to re-read the transcript of the full interview.
“I said anybody of any faith of any belief system who comes to America, becomes an American citizen, embraces our American values and principles, and is willing to subjugate their beliefs to our Constitution is somebody I have no problem with,” Carson said. “Anybody that doesn’t fit in that category, I don’t care who they are, they can be a Christian, if they don’t fit in that category I’m not going to advocate they be president of the United States. It’s as simple as that.”
Carson emphasized that his position in “no way precludes them from running.”
“The last I checked we all had the right to decide who we wanted to advocate for. We don’t have to in any way say that you must say this or you must say that, you know, political correctness is ruining our country and we need to stand up for what we actually believe. It’s ridiculous,” he said.
Carson argued that the media does not want to talk about “real issues” like the nation’s fiscal irresponsibility.
“As a pediatric neurosurgeon I spent my entire career working on the welfare of children; I cannot sit by and watch us ruining their future,” Carson said.
He specifically mentioned America’s $18 trillion national debt.
“What a ridiculous amount of money,” he said. “To pay that back at a rate of $10 million a day, 365 days a year, it would take you over 5,000 years – and that’s what we’re putting on the backs of our young people.”
GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee positioned himself as the best candidate to take on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“I know something about the Clintons because I’ve been fighting them all of my political life for the past 25 years,” he said. “Every election I’ve ever been involved in, they’ve been involved in.”
Huckabee told the crowd they are going to hear a lot of candidates saying they’re ready to take on this election.
“But there’s only one person that’s going to be on that debate stage for the Republicans who has consistently challenged the Clintons, defeated the Clinton machine and lived to tell about it,” he said to laughter from the audience.
Carson also joked with the crowd when he entered the main stage.
“I love enthusiastic crowds, it makes up for my low energy,” he quipped.
Huckabee suggested that congressional Republicans have to go further than defunding Planned Parenthood.
“Let’s do something far bolder than simply cut out the funding for one agency that provides abortions – because as important as that is, it doesn’t end the nightmare. It does not end this horrible, uncivilized savage behavior. It just moves it over to let someone else do it,” he said.
“I have said as president of the Untied States I will raise this question: Is the unborn child a person or is it just a blob of tissue? And I believe the answer to that question is we all know it is a person. None of your daughters and daughters-in-law called you up and said, ‘congratulations, guess what—I’m going to have a blob of tissue.’ They called you up and said I’m going to have a baby.”
Huckabee said there is constitutional protection for the unborn.
“It’s called the Fifth Amendment, that says that there will be due process before you deprive a person of life and liberty. As president, we will evoke the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment. We will protect human life,” he said.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump took aim at Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in his speech, calling the Republican presidential candidate a clown.
“You talk about weak on immigration. There’s nobody weaker,” he said.
“He hits me, sometimes the Republicans do it more than anybody because they want to get into the publicity side and all you’re doing is hurting yourself. It’s a bad thing. All you’re doing is hurting yourselves,” Trump also said.
Following his remarks, PJ Media asked Trump for his reaction to House Speaker John Boehner’s resignation.
“It’s going to be interesting,” he replied before leaving the hotel.
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