Ben Carson: Politicians Don’t ‘Understand Real Life’

WALLACE: Hello again and happy Mother’s Day from Fox News in Washington.

Three new candidates entered the Republican presidential race this week with a field that’s likely to grow to more than dozen. The challenge will be finding a way to stand out.

Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson has made it clear he has no desire to fit into the mold of a Washington politician.

Dr. Carson joins us now. Welcome back to “Fox News Sunday.”

CARSON: Thank you. Good to be here.

WALLACE: First of all, especially on this Mother’s Day, how is your mom, who I know is ill? Briefly, looking back, what was the greatest impact that she’s had on your life?

CARSON: Well, thanks for asking. And thank you for the millions of people who have started praying for her, because she’s starting to eat again. We thought she was gone and she’s starting to eat again.

So — she had the biggest impact of any human being on my life because she refused to be a victim and she refused to let me and my brother be victims. And that was really the key.

And she made us do things we didn’t wanted to do. She reminds me of that Baltimore mother who went out and got her son off the streets. That would have been her. And it made a huge difference.

WALLACE: And when you say she refused to be a victim, I mean, you grew up in dire poverty in inner city of Detroit.

CARSON: Absolutely. Never had money for anything. But I tell you what did really work — books. Between the covers of those books I could go anyplace, I could be anybody, I could do anything.

And particularly as I read about people of great accomplishment, I began to realize that the person who has the most to do what happens to you in life is you. Not somebody else and not the environment.

WALLACE: OK. Your greatest strength in the race, I would argue, and — some would argue is also your greatest label, and that is you’ve never run for or held political office. How do you answer the experience question?

CARSON: I simply say experience can come from a variety of different places. There have been many people who have been groomed to believe that experience can only come in the political arena, but I’ve had a lot of experience, world experience, putting together teams to accomplish things never done before, incredible complex surgical procedures.

Putting together a national scholarship program. Nine out of ten nonprofits fail. Ours not only has not failed, has thrived. Working in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We’re putting in reading rooms all over the country affecting people’s lives. I’ve had lot of corporate board experience, 18 years on Kellogg’s, 16 years on Costco, as well as other boards.

So, you know, there’s real-life experience and there’s politics. Politics, you know, there are some good politics in the political arena but I’m not sure they actually, in many cases, understand real life.