Carson’s Newest Eyebrow-Raising Comment: ‘Covert Division’ Of Government Employees

Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson speaks at Manchester Community College, Sunday, May 10, 2015, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Schwalm)

If he’s elected president, Republican 2016 presidential Ben Carson said he might set up a “covert division” of government employees to monitor coworkers in order to make government more efficient.

In Iowa on Wednesday, according to MSNBC, Carson said he was “thinking very seriously” about creating “a covert division of people who look like the people in this room, who monitor what government people do.”

Employees would work harder if they believed some of their coworkers were secretly spying on them, he added.

“And we make it possible to fire government people,” the former neurosurgeon said, sparking cheers from the crowd of Iowa Republican voters.

The comment is the latest in a string of recent unusual or controversial comments he’s made. Carson, in the past, has compared Obamacare to slavery, said legalizing gay marriage could open the floodgates to all other types of unions, and even likened President Barack Obama and liberals to Nazi sympathizers.

Nevertheless, he’s still polling somewhat competitively in the 2016 GOP field. A recent national Republican primary poll conducted by Fox News found Carson trailing only former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) among the large GOP primary field.

92
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Nevertheless, he’s still polling somewhat competitively in the 2016 GOP field.

    Nevertheless? More like cause and effect.

  2. Gestapo tactics, because Freedom!

  3. George Orwell had Ben Carson in mind.

  4. More Sicherheitsdienst than Gestapo, but, yeah. Because FREEEEDOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

  5. Maybe instead of firing people, we could set up camps in Alaska for their re-education?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

86 more replies

Participants

Avatar for jack_russell Avatar for frasca Avatar for jw1 Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for ncsteve Avatar for rationalleft Avatar for fargo116 Avatar for chammy Avatar for trippin Avatar for wiscojoe Avatar for krusher Avatar for m3man Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for joelopines Avatar for gr Avatar for m_b_w Avatar for tomj Avatar for kitty Avatar for suicide_arsonist Avatar for darrtown Avatar for emilianoelmexicano Avatar for vladomatic Avatar for canadianhere Avatar for canary02

Continue Discussion