WASHINGTON — (CNN) Ben Carson’s campaign moved to distance itself Tuesday from a report suggesting that two of his top advisers are frustrated with his approach to foreign policy.
According to The New York Times, Duane R. Clarridge, who reached out to Carson two years ago to advise him on terrorism and national security, said the retired pediatric neurosurgeon is struggling to grasp the complexities of world affairs.
“Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,” Clarridge told the newspaper.
Clarridge’s criticism comes as the political debate has shifted to national security in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian plane.
Carson aides say the candidate has a circle of roughly a dozen or so foreign policy advisers, including Robert Dees and Bud McFarlane and that Clarridge has not regularly been involved in prep sessions.
“Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national security matters from former military and state department officials. He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country,” said Doug Watts, Carson’s communications adviser. “Mr. Clarridge’s input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson’s top advisors. For The New York Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic practices.”
As a frontrunner, Carson is facing increased scrutiny and at times has seemed out of his depth on foreign policy — Carson business manager Armstrong Williams said on Bloomberg News that he was on a “learning curve.”
In a ‘Fox News Sunday’ interview, Carson was unable to name the foreign leader he would call first as he developed an ISIS strategy. Aides said that often Carson can be dismissive of questions he thinks are irrelevant and needed to understand that viewers and voters could see such dismissiveness as lacking knowledge.
In the last GOP debate, Carson suggested that China was active in Syria. His campaign later released a statement that blamed the press for misinterpreting him and said that China didn’t have a military presence in Syria, but had sold weapons and supplies in Syria.
“He is learning, he is in school and he wants to know it just as well as the experts,” said Williams. “He is knee-deep in it.”
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