Former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson speaks with Maine delegates at the state GOP Convention, Friday, April 22, in Bangor, Maine. | AP Photo Carson: My mother 'would have taken a gun' and shot 'dishonest reporters'

Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson joked Wednesday that if his mother did not have Alzheimer's disease, she would have likely taken to arms and gone after the "dishonest reporters" covering the campaign herself.

“What would your mother have thought if she were alive to see you run for the White House?” Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson asked on CBS Radio's "Brown and Scoop" podcast.


Carson quickly corrected him, noting that his mother, Sonya, "is still alive by the way."

"She has Alzheimer’s. She’s not really cognizant of that, which is a good thing because my mother is really a fighter. She probably would have taken a gun and gone out and shot some of the dishonest reporters," the retired neurosurgeon said, laughing.

While he said he was "honored" to have been impersonated on "Saturday Night Live," Carson had sharper words for the media's coverage of his campaign, remarking that "one of the reasons that our founders said that our system and our freedom depends on a well-informed and educated populace is because they recognize that if people were not well-informed and well-educated, they can be easily manipulated by a dishonest media and that’s exactly what happens in our society today.”