Dr. Ben Carson argued with CNN’s Brianna Keilar about the media’s role in propping up the scandalous comments Donald Trump made in a video captured by “Access Hollywood” in 2005.
“You can talk about [the video] until you’re blue in the face,” Carson stated. “It is not helping the electorate understand what the policies of the Republicans and the Democrats are, what their platforms are and which direction they want the country to go in. Right now, that is a critical issue, and it needs to be dealt with.”
“Anything that detracts from you being able to put that information out there and I’m hoping that — that your industry, the news industry, will actually become very mature and say, look, we’re just not go to deal with all of this peripheral issues,” he continued.
Carson noted that nothing can “excuse the words,” Trump used, but that it was only “locker room talk,” before he and Keilar began arguing and talking over each other:
KIELAR: Why did you call it locker room talk?
CARSON: Call it whatever you need to call it to make it feel good to you, but the fact of the matter is, I mean, I’ve been in lots of places where men talk about tales of sexual conquest —
KEILAR: Dr. Carson, you said say whatever you need to say to make it feel good to you or to the viewer. That’s not the viewer’s job, to characterize this, to make it feel good for them. This is what it is. Why did you call it locker room talk?
CARSON: Don’t mischaracterize — if you mind — Don’t mischaracterize what I’m saying. What I am saying is that, that kind of banter goes around all the time. Is it the right kind of thing to do? Absolutely not.
KEILAR: So you hear — you’ve heard people talking like this?
CARSON: I’ve heard people talking like — of course. Are you kidding me?
KEILAR: Where are you hanging out and with whom are you hanging out that you hear people talking like that?
CARSON: As I was growing up, people were always trying to talk about their sexual conquests, trying to make themselves appear, you know, like the Don Casanova. I’m surprised you haven’t heard that. I really am.
KEILAR: I haven’t heard it and I know a lot of people who have not heard it, and I —
CARSON: Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s the problem.