Carson Inaccurately Credits Thomas Jefferson With Writing Constitution

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said in an interview that aired Sunday that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution. But in reality, the founding father was the lead author of the Declaration of Independence.

It’s not the first time Carson has gotten United States history wrong. As The Wall Street Journal previously flagged, Carson erroneously said the founding fathers had “no elected office experience.”

Carson credited the nation’s third President with writing the Constitution when he was asked who of the founding fathers stood out in an interview with C-SPAN as part of its “Road to the White House” series.

“I’m impressed by a lot of them, but particularly impressed with Thomas Jefferson, who seemed to have very deep insight into the way that people would react,” Carson said. “And he tried to craft our Constitution in a way that it would control people’s natural tendencies and control the natural growth of the government.”

Watch below:

h/t: Mediaite

Latest Livewire
154
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. “Well, you know how it is. All those white boys look alike.”

  2. No, no, Ben. Thomas Jefferson contributed only a series of tweets to the Constitution, with lots of LOL’s and OMG’s.

  3. What a fucking idiot. Rinse. Repeat tomorrow.

  4. Concentrate on the swinging charm ---- You’re getting very…very …s.l…e…e…p…y - - - -

  5. The GOP must be very proud of itself.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

148 more replies

Participants

Avatar for publishermike Avatar for lestatdelc Avatar for pluckyinky Avatar for ajaykalra Avatar for overreach_this Avatar for charliee Avatar for ncsteve Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for clunkertruck Avatar for mcnett Avatar for cvilledem Avatar for pshipkey Avatar for sniffit Avatar for onyxbook Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for ignoreland Avatar for courfeyrac Avatar for darrtown Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for henk Avatar for jonney_5 Avatar for professorpoopypants Avatar for bobbyvee Avatar for Landshark2995

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: