Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Friday tried to offer an explanation for why the details in a story about his involvement in an attempted stabbing have changed over time.
“For one thing, it happened 50 years ago — half a century ago,” Carson told the Washington Post. “For another thing, when people record what I’ve said, they record it in different ways. When you’ve got something from 50 years ago that’s told by many different people, it’s sort of like the party game where you whisper to people sitting in a circle. When it gets to the original person, it’s very different.”
{mosads}The story in question involves Carson allegedly trying to stab someone else in rage, but hitting his belt buckle and breaking his knife. He has said that incident helped lead to his discovery of religion.
A Tuesday report by The Daily Beast revealed that certain details differ in the many different retellings of the story. In some, he stabs a friend; in others, a random person. He has sometimes said he ran away after the attempted stabbing, while on different occasions said that the other boy ran from him. The description of the knife has also changed.
Carson faces the scrutiny as he stands as one of the GOP presidential primary’s front-runners. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday found him in a statistical tie with Donald Trump — who has been leading the race for months.
Carson’s campaign frequently touts his backstory of growing up in poverty before becoming renowned neurosurgeon.