--- 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 ---  # Ben Carson's Advisers Say He's Struggling With Foreign Policy > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=0547ecf5-efb4-41a2-9e96-779e78d6827f&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-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_  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  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 I was born and grew up very poor. Single parent home. But my mother was out working extraordinarily hard. Three jobs at a time. And she only had a third grade education. She had to take care of us. [ UNKNOWN ] poverty. I was a terrible student. A horrible student. Had a bad temper. As a teenager, I would go out to people with rocks and bricks and Baseball bats and hammers. Most of my classmates thought I was the stupidest person in the world. They called me dummy. I was the **** of all the jokes. When I was 14 and I tried to stab someone. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school. And she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. And you know what? God gave her the wisdom. Turning off the TV and making us read books and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with what happens with you in life is you. Is you. You know, I loved anything that had to do with medicine. I even like going to the doctor's office. [ LAUGH ] And I would gladly sacrifice a shot just to be able to smell those alcohol swabs. And as a pediatric neurosurgeon who spent my entire career Working on the welfare of children. There had been many times when I've operated for 12, 15, 18, 20 hours. I'm the only one that separate Siamese twins. The only one to operate on babies while they were still in their mother's womb. The only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think, if you go to Washington, that someone had beat me to it. Ben Carson And I am a candidate for 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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