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Ben Carson Book Signing at Barnes & Noble

Learning foreign policy clearly doesn’t come as easily to Ben Carson as medicine. Carson, the renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate who leads the pack in several polls, is having a hard time grasping the complexities of foreign affairs issues, according to The New York Times.

Some of his gaffes have been public — like when he wrongly claimed that China had intervened militarily in Syria and then failed, on national television, to name the countries he would call on to form a coalition to fight ISIS, The Times notes. But even behind closed doors he’s having a hard time, aides told the news outlet.

From The New York Times:

“Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,” said Duane R. Clarridge, a top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and national security. He also said Mr. Carson needed weekly conference calls briefing him on foreign policy so “we can make him smart.”

[…]

Mr. Clarridge, who contacted Mr. Carson nearly two years ago to offer his services without pay, has helped the candidate prepare for debates. But the briefings do not always seem to sink in, Mr. Clarridge said. After Mr. Carson struggled on “Fox News Sunday” to say whom he would call first to form a coalition against the Islamic State, Mr. Clarridge called Mr. Williams in frustration. “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,” Mr. Clarridge said he told Mr. Williams.

[Armstrong] Williams, one of Mr. Carson’s closest friends, who does not have an official role in the campaign, also lamented the Fox News interview. “He’s been briefed on it so many times,” he said. “I guess he just froze.”

Here is the one time you can literally say, well, foreign policy is not neurosurgery. So what’s going on here? Sound off…

SOURCE: The New York Times | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

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On Blast: Ben Carson’s Top Aide Admits The Candidate Knows Nothing About Foreign Policy  was originally published on newsone.com