As Dr. Ben Carson mulls whether or not to make a run for president in 2016 on the Republican ticket, he says that he welcomes the scrutiny he will face as a candidate.
"In this vetting process, you have an opportunity to really look at a person's entire life, and that should tell you a great deal," Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon from the John Hopkins Children's Center, told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV Friday.
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"There's some people who are thrust into positions of great responsibility and sometimes we don't vet them. We don't look into their past, we don't look into their associations, we don't look into their accomplishments, we don't look into what kind of person they are, and all of those things become clear," he explained.
"I welcome the magnifying glass. I don't have any problem [with it]," he said. "I welcome hard questions."
While speaking at the Republican National Committee's gathering in the San Diego area Thursday,
Carson compared American patriots during the American Revolution to Islamic State [ISIS] militants, saying that "they got the wrong philosophy, but they're willing to die for what they believe, while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness."
Carson tells Newsmax that the comment was misunderstood.
"What I am saying is that we had a bunch of ragtag militiamen who were willing to die for what they believed, and they were able to defeat the most powerful and professional army on the face of the earth," he explained. "There are some similarities."
With the Islamic State, "you have people who are willing to die for what they believe as we are giving away our belief system," he said.
"There is a danger there, that's the point I am making — we have to start understanding who we are and what we believe. We have to grasp it solidly," he added.
The retired pediatric neurosurgeon also recently came under fire for his association with the the medical supplement maker Mannatech, Inc., which has been accused of false advertising,
National Review reported.
Carson explains that when he first became associated with the company, he didn't know about the legal troubles it has faced. He places the blame for such accusations on overzealous sales associates.
"I've heard [former Mannatech CEO Sam Caster] repeatedly stress to the sales associates — do not make claims that this is a medicine or that this heals things," he said.
"You get people who are exuberant because they see an opportunity to make some money and some of them have done things that I would totally disagree with and have made that very clear that I didn't want to be associated with any such claims," he explained.
However, he said that he does take Mannatech supplements, and "since I've been taking them, I almost never get sick anymore, and I used to get sick a lot."
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