--- title: Ben Carson's Advisors Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy description: Top advisers recently said that the doctor is struggling to grasp foreign policy. canonical: https://time.com/4117135/ben-carson-foreign-policy/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-17T21:13:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T22:24:33.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Ben Carson's Advisors Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy og:description: "Nobody has been able to sit down have him get one iota of intelligent information." og:url: https://time.com/4117135/ben-carson-foreign-policy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ddfcb034064afe4/698871a35f570feb37b1e64f/ben-carson8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: REFILE - CORRECTING TYPOU.S. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks at a news conference at the Green Valley Ranch resort in Henderson, Nevada November 16, 2015. Carson announced that he sent to a letter to Congress urging the termination of og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ben Carson's Advisors Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy twitter:description: "Nobody has been able to sit down have him get one iota of intelligent information." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ddfcb034064afe4/698871a35f570feb37b1e64f/ben-carson8.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 video:duration: 01:39 video:published: 2015-10-27 section: politics topics: childhood poverty, single-parent family, education and reading, personal transformation, pediatric neurosurgery, surgical achievements, presidential campaign, 2016 Republican primary genre: personal story, campaign biography tones: reflective, self-promotional, candid, determined emotions: pride (high), determination (high), hardship (medium), humor (low) sentiment: positive audience: political news followers, voters, healthcare readers, general news audiences people: Ben Carson content_suitability: violence [00:17-00:31]; profanity [00:28-00:31]; health controversy [01:16-01:30] transcript_source: publisher captions transcript_reviewed: not applicable ---  # Ben Carson's Advisers Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=09607d89-f131-43d7-88ff-3bf59b99a410&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Watch Ben Carson Retell His Life Story [Watch (HLS stream): Watch Ben Carson Retell His Life Story](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3PLzGzLI.m3u8) (1:39)  _Published 2015-10-27. GOP Presidential Candidate Ben Carson retells his life story_ Description, summary, key points, chapters, key quotes, questions and transcript, where present, were produced automatically from the video or its captions and were not reviewed. ## Summary Ben Carson recounts his childhood in poverty as a single-parent household member, describing himself as a poor student with a bad temper who was bullied. He credits his mother's insistence on reading and book reports, and his own discovery of role models, for changing his path. He then describes his career as a pediatric neurosurgeon and presents himself as a candidate for President of the United States. ## Key points - Carson says he grew up very poor in a single-parent home, with a mother working three jobs at a time. (00:00) - Carson describes himself as a terrible, horrible student with a bad temper, and says classmates called him dummy. (00:17) - As a 14-year-old, Carson says he tried to stab someone. (00:31) - Carson says his mother prayed for wisdom and then turned off the TV and required book reports from her children. (00:37) - Carson says he began reading about people of great accomplishment and concluded that the person who matters most in one's life is oneself. (00:46) - Carson says he loved anything related to medicine and became a pediatric neurosurgeon focused on children's welfare. (01:01) - Carson says he has operated for 12 to 20 hours at a time during his career. (01:16) - Carson claims he was the only surgeon to separate Siamese twins, to operate on babies in the womb, and to remove half of a brain. (01:23) ## Chapters - [00:00 to 00:17] Poverty and a single-parent home. Carson describes growing up poor with a hard-working single mother who had a third grade education. - [00:17 to 00:37] Struggles as a young student. Carson recounts being a poor student with a temper, bullied by classmates, and involved in violence as a teenager. - [00:37 to 00:54] Mother's intervention and turning to reading. Carson says his mother's prayer led her to enforce reading and book reports, after which he began studying accomplished people. - [00:54 to 01:08] Early interest in medicine. Carson says he loved anything related to medicine, even enjoying doctors' offices and alcohol swabs. - [01:08 to 01:39] Career as a neurosurgeon and presidential bid. Carson lists his surgical achievements as a pediatric neurosurgeon and announces his candidacy for President of the United States. ## Key quotes - [00:37] Ben Carson: "And she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom." - [00:46] Ben Carson: "I began to see that the person who has the most to do with what happens with you in life is you." - [01:08] Ben Carson: "as a pediatric neurosurgeon who spent my entire career Working on the welfare of children." - [01:35] Ben Carson: "I am a candidate for President of the United States." ## Questions this video answers - How did Ben Carson's childhood in poverty shape his early life? [00:00] - What role did Carson's mother play in changing his academic performance? [00:37] - What led Carson to pursue a career in medicine? [00:54] - What surgical achievements does Carson say he has accomplished? [01:16] - What does Carson say about his candidacy for President? [01:35] ## Content suitability - violence [00:17-00:31]: Carson describes carrying rocks, bricks, bats and hammers as a teenager and attempting to stab someone. - profanity [00:28-00:31]: Transcript contains a masked profanity in the line about being the butt of jokes. - health controversy [01:16-01:30]: Carson describes operating on babies in the womb and removing half of a brain.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 10:24 PM UTCPublished: Nov 17, 2015 9:13 PM UTC GOP Presidential Candidate Ben Carson retells his life story  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Updated: Dec 13, 2023 10:24 PM UTCPublished: Nov 17, 2015 9:13 PM UTC Ben Carson is running his campaign with the biblical notion that “in the multitude of counselors is safety,” [he told TIME](http://time.com/4055737/ben-carson-interview-time/) in September, calling in experts to brief him on issues that his career in neurosurgery didn’t prepare him for. But top advisers recently said that the doctor is struggling to grasp foreign policy. [In a New York _Times_ article](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/us/politics/ben-carson-is-struggling-to-grasp-foreign-policy-advisers-say.html) published Tuesday, Duane R. Clarridge, who the _Times_ identifies as one of Carson’s “top adviser\[s\] on terrorism an national security,” said, “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.” “We need to have a conference call once a week where his guys roll out the subjects they think will be out there, and we can make him smart,” Clarridge said. Doug Watts, a spokesman for the Carson campaign, told TIME that Clarridge was not the only adviser. “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 said in a statement. “He is coming to the end of a long career of serving our country. Mr. Clarridge’s input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson’s top advisers.” “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,” he added. In September, campaign manager Barry Bennett explained to TIME the team’s strategy to bring Carson up to speed on issues. “In medical school he stopped going to lectures because he could learn better and faster by reading multiple textbooks on the same subject,” Bennett said of Carson. “Now every morning he gets a stack of briefs. We follow that up with parlor sessions where I’ll sit him down for an hour” with experts on the subject of the day. **Read More:** [_Why Ben Carson Is Running for President_](http://time.com/4055737/ben-carson-interview-time/) In an interview later the same month, Carson talked about his memory, which Bennett had described as a stack of notecards in his mind. “I do have a tendency to categorize things and be able to pull something up and then just go with it,” Carson said. Carson’s foreign policy chops were questioned recently when at the last Republican debate he claimed the Chinese had intervened in Syria, a fact that [has been disputed](http://time.com/4113042/paris-attacks-islamic-state-republican-positions/) by the White House. A few days later, Carson was unable to answer on Fox News Sunday who he would join with to form a coalition against the Islamic State. “He’s been briefed on it so many times,” Armstrong Williams, a friend of Carson’s who does not have an official role in the campaign, told the _Times_. “I guess he just froze.” **Read Next**: [_Ben Carson: The U.S. Must Not Accept Any Syrian Refugees_](http://time.com/4116014/paris-attacks-ben-carson/) ## Transcript [00:00] I was born and grew up very poor. Single [00:05] parent home. But my mother was out working [00:07] extraordinarily hard. Three jobs at a time. And she [00:11] only had a third grade education. She had to take care [00:13] of us. [ UNKNOWN ] poverty. I was a terrible student. A [00:17] horrible student. Had a bad temper. As a teenager, I [00:21] would go out to people with rocks and bricks and [00:24] Baseball bats and hammers. Most of my classmates [00:26] thought I was the stupidest person in the world. They [00:28] called me dummy. I was the **** of all the jokes. When [00:31] I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. My mother [00:35] couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in [00:37] school. And she prayed and she asked God to give her [00:39] wisdom. And you know what? God gave her the [00:41] wisdom. Turning off the TV and making us read books [00:44] and submit to her written book reports, which she [00:46] couldn't read. I began to read about people of great [00:50] accomplishment. I began to see that the person who [00:53] has the most to do with what happens with you in life is [00:54] you. Is you. You know, I loved anything that [00:58] had to do with medicine. I even like going to the [01:01] doctor's office. [ LAUGH ] And I would gladly sacrifice a [01:05] shot just to be able to smell those alcohol swabs. And [01:08] as a pediatric neurosurgeon who spent my entire [01:11] career Working on the welfare of children. There [01:16] had been many times when I've operated for 12, 15, [01:19] 18, 20 hours. I'm the only one that separate [01:23] Siamese twins. The only one to operate on babies [01:25] while they were still in their mother's womb. The only [01:28] one to take out half of a brain, although you would [01:30] think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat [01:32] me to it. Ben Carson And I am a candidate for [01:35] President of the United States. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4117135/ben-carson-foreign-policy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4117135/ben-carson-foreign-policy/"},"headline":"Ben Carson's Advisers Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy","datePublished":"2015-11-17T21:13:34.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T22:24:33.000Z","description":"Top advisers recently said that the doctor is struggling to grasp foreign policy.","url":"https://time.com/4117135/ben-carson-foreign-policy/","keywords":["2016 Election","Foreign Policy","Dr. Benjamin S. 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