Ahead of a likely Republican run for the White House, neurosurgeon Ben Carson is busy interviewing potential campaign staffers, The Daily Caller has learned.
Carson and his top adviser, Terry Giles, are in Washington and New York this week “vetting folks for the campaign” and will be in California doing the same next week, the aide said.
“Ben is doing great in the polls and excitement is building,” Giles, who will serve as chairman of the Carson campaign, told TheDC on Wednesday.
An official campaign announcement, however, won’t come for several months, Giles said.
Also, later this month, Carson and Giles plan to travel to Israel. Carson’s business manager, Armstrong Williams, said in a phone call Thursday that he is organizing the Israel trip for Carson. He called it a “fact-gathering mission to learn about the Middle East.”
Williams said the neurosurgeon would “welcome” the chance to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though said no meeting is scheduled yet.
While Carson doesn’t have any political experience, he is quite popular with conservatives. A CNN poll released this week shocked observers by showing Carson polling in second — only behind Mitt Romney — in a 2016 presidential poll.