Ben Carson Defends Writing that Obama Is Anti-Semitic

WALLACE: “All right. Let's turn to foreign policy. As president, you say you would revoke the current Iran deal and negotiate a better one and you also are fiercely critical of President Obama for you say attacking his critics. Here's an article that you wrote this week in The Jerusalem Post. You called the president the ‘divider-in-chief’ and you write this, ‘Shockingly, his diatribe also was replete with coded innuendos employing standard anti-Semitic themes involving implied disloyalty and nefarious influence related to money and power.’ Question, Barack Obama anti-Semitic?”

CARSON: “Well, all you have to do, Chris, is like I have go to Israel and talk to average people, you know, on all ends of that spectrum. And I couldn't find a single person there who didn't feel that this administration had turned their backs on Israel. And I think, you know, the position of president of United States should be one where you begin to draw people together behind a vision. Not one where you castigate those who believe differently from you. I think it's a possibility for great healing if it is used in the correct way.”

WALLACE: “But, you know, it's one thing to, one could argue your policy differs from Israel but you say in your article and you're talking about his domestic critics in this country that there's anti-Semitic themes there. What specifically is anti-Semitic in what the president is saying?”

CARSON: “Well, I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them. And to sort of ignore that and to act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that's anti- Semitic.”