GOP frontrunner Donald Trump turned his attacks on his closest competitor, Ben Carson, Thursday morning, questioning his faith, his stand on abortion, and his low-key energy, along with saying the retired head of pediatric neurosurgery from Johns Hopkins might be an "okay doctor."
"Frankly, he looks like he makes [Jeb] Bush look like the Energizer Bunny," Trump told CNN "New Day" host Chris Cuomo in a wide-spanning interview. "He's starting to hit me, so I hit back. I only hit back when I get hit."
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Carson on Wednesday night told Fox News' Sean Hannity that he has
never denied his faith in God, but he doesn't "get that impression with [Trump]."
"I have known of Ben Carson for a long time and never heard faith was a big thing until just recently when he started running," Trump told Cuomo. "All of a sudden he becomes the great religious figure. I saw him yesterday quoting on humility and it looked like he memorized it two minutes before he made the quote."
Trump also slammed Carson on the issue of abortion, challenging Cuomo to "go back to look at his views on abortion...he was heavy into the world of abortion and he was a doctor. And take a look at the hospitals where he worked...all of a sudden he's, oh, he's totally anti-abortion. Well, if you look back, you will find he's a very much different Ben Carson."
Trump insisted to Cuomo that he happens "to be a great believer in God and a great believer in the Bible," and wanted to know who Carson is "to question my faith ...he doesn't even know me. I've met him a few times."
He continued on to question Carson's medical credentials: "He was a doctor, perhaps an okay doctor, by the way, you can check that out too. He was an okay doctor."
"I don't know about 'okay doctor,'" Cuomo shot back. "He was the
first man to separate conjoined twins."
"He's a doctor and hired one nurse," Trump said. "He's going to end up being the president of the United States?"
He also went on to defend the comments he was quoted as making about another candidate, Carly Fiorina, and her looks in a
Rolling Stone article that came out this week.
"You're making fun of the way she looks," Cuomo told him. "Why do you talk about the way women look so much? It's not presidential...you said 'look at that face.'"
Trump said he instead meant that Fiorina has "had a terrible past" and was "fired viciously from Hewlett Packard" after going down as "one of the worst [CEOs] ever."
But as far as Fiorina's looks, Trump said, "they talk about my hair and that's okay."
Trump also commented on the Kim Davis situation, saying he embraces both sides of the argument, but it would be "really good if she could either stay and let the clerks do the work that she can't do, or get herself something somewhere else that she doesn't come into conflict."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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