Carson suggests Trump, Khans should apologize to each other 'If you accuse someone of something that's not true, it usually is a reasonable thing to acknowledge that," Carson said of Khizr Khan.

Donald Trump and the parents of a fallen U.S. Army captain who criticized him at last week's Democratic convention could reasonably be asked to apologize to each other, Ben Carson said Wednesday.

"Well, obviously, you know, any family who loses service members are people for whom we should have great sympathy, and certainly I feel very much for those families. Recognize that they are grieving and very often, you know, they will say and do things out of that grief. I think we should just give them a pass and move on," the Trump adviser and former presidential candidate told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "And you know, I'm hopeful as time goes on everybody on both sides of the aisle will simply adopt a position that we're not going to make these the issues."


Asked whether Trump should apologize to Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Carson suggested that it is "time to ... move on."

"I don't think it would be harmful if they apologized to him and he apologized to them. But I don't see that happening," Carson admitted.

Khizr Khan, the Pakistani-born father of Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004, denounced Trump in his Democratic National Convention address last Thursday. The speech prompted a days-long back-and-forth between the family and the Republican nominee.

As for why the Khans should offer an apology to Trump, Carson responded, "Well, for one thing, you know, if you accuse someone of something that's not true, it usually is a reasonable thing to acknowledge that."

"So what you would like to see is an apology from those parents. Is that what you're saying?" Blitzer followed up.

Carson remarked that he would like to avoid making it "a one-sided issue."

"Why don't we all say back off a little bit. We have such important issues to deal with. And you know, let's just call a truce," the retired neurosurgeon said. "And the best way to call a truce is simply to say, 'I'm over that, you're over that, I'm sorry I said this if it offended you.' Other side: 'I'm sorry if I said that.' Because that's not our issue. You know, our strength as a nation is through unity. It's not through division. Division will destroy us. A house divided against itself cannot stand. That's what we need to be concentrating on. Not these peripheral issues that don't mean anything. We just seem to be addicted to things that don't mean anything."