There's "nothing hateful" about President-elect Donald Trump's White House chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, Ben Carson insisted Tuesday in a full-throated defense of the former Breitbart News chairman.
In a telephone interview with The Daily Beast, the former presidential candidate and prominent Trump supporter also pushed back at criticism of Trump over the support he's received from white supremacist groups.
"I don't think the president-elect can be held responsible for who supports him," he said. "I didn't see anybody blaming President Obama when the Black Panthers were doing things. I just don't understand why we have to take anybody who supports someone and make them try to defend that person."
Carson told The Daily Beast that he knows Bannon on a personal level – and found him "gracious."
"I've known him. I’ve never seen any of the negative things that people talk about," Carson told the online outlet. "I've been to his home. He’s a very gracious host. I have found nothing hateful or white supremacist in anything that he's ever done."
Carson's defense came on the same day the president-elect also defended Bannon during a talk with New York Times journalists.
"If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn't even think about hiring him," Trump said of Bannon, who's faced fierce criticism since his selection.
"I think it's very hard on him. I think he's having a hard time with it. Because it's not him."
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