Carson hits back at critics: I'm not 'weak'

Ben Carson on Monday acknowledged that some voters perceive him as weak on foreign policy, but said they've gotten the wrong impression because he's a "nice guy."

“You know, I am realistic to understand that that’s the reason that my poll numbers have taken a dip,” said Carson, whose numbers have plummeted from 18 percent to 9 percent in the latest Fox News survey. “Because people think that I’m a nice guy. I am a nice guy, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not tough. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have strength.”


The retired neurosurgeon, speaking at an Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security forum in New Hampshire, tried to the make the case that he's a strong leader, running through a long list of accomplishments that he said a "weak" person could not achieve.

Carson stressed that, despite the political class’s “foolish” assumption that only they can solve America’s problems, the founding of the U.S. was designed for the citizen statesman, not career politicians. The political outsider said he has access to people whose lives are steeped in foreign policy that he can learn from. “You know, I can learn. You know, I can listen,” he said. “And I also have wisdom and I also pray and ask God for wisdom. Those, I think, are much more important than multiple years in the political sphere. And I can tell you there are a lot of people in Washington, D.C., who’ve been there for decades and I wouldn’t let them tie my shoe.”

Carson has been heavily criticized in recent weeks for a series of foreign policy stumbles, including struggling to name allies he would call to create an international military coalition against the Islamic State, saying China had a military presence in Syria, and mispronouncing the name of the Gaza-based militant group Hamas during a Republican Jewish Coalition forum earlier this month. Donald Trump, meanwhile, has zoomed further up in the polls as he has ratcheted up his talk about how he would take on ISIL.

“You know, our society has been manipulated, quite frankly, into believing that the louder you talk and the more you gesticulate, somehow the stronger you are,” Carson said. “And that’s a false narrative. What really needs to be looked at is what have you accomplished?”

Carson fired off his list of accolades — uncharacteristically, by his account — citing such achievements as becoming the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins at age 33 and building the hospital up to a No. 1 U.S. News World & Report ranking in 2008. “That does not happen with weak people,” he said.

He also pointed to the dozens of honorary doctorates he has received. “I have not one, not two, not five, but 67 honorary doctorates,” Carson said. “Now I suspect if you took everybody else who’s running and added up all their honorary degrees it would not come close to that. People do not look for weak people in order to give a representation of their university.”

The Library of Congress on its 200th anniversary selected 89 living legends. “I was one of them,” Carson added. “Again, they don’t go around looking for weak people to be a living legend.”

Carson concluded his list of honors with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor one can receive, but noted he could go on and on “for quite a while.” “But here’s my point: My point is strength is not determined by the decibels at which you say something but rather by the accomplishments in your life,” he said.

“That’s what really denotes strength — your life’s accomplishments, not how loud you talk,” Carson said. “If it’s about how loud you talk, all you need to do is go to Washington, D.C., and you can find a lot of people who talk very loud about all kinds of things and have done nothing.”