Ben Carson Bashes Ted Cruz for Iowa Dirty Tricks: ‘Never a More Tainted Victory’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

KOOIMAN: “All right. Steve, well, how did Ted Cruz defy the polls and win first place in Iowa? Dr. Ben Carson said he cheated. Overnight his campaign releasing statement. Listen: ‘There’s never been a more tainted victory in the Iowa caucuses...From the mailing denounced by the Iowa secretary of state to his abject lies about Dr. Ben Carson. Senator Cruz...demonstrated he is a worst kind of Washington insider. No candidate who claimed to be an outsider would stoop to these tactics.”
DOOCY: “Here to address this for the first time, Dr. Ben Carson. Good morning, doctor.”
CARSON: “Good morning.”
DOOCY: “What are we talking about? What dirty tricks?”
CARSON: “Well, you know, many of the — at many of the precincts, the information was disseminated that I was suspending my campaign, that I had dropped out. And anybody who was planning to vote for me was wasting their vote and therefore they should reconsider.”
DOOCY: “Now, when you say that information was disseminated, are you saying that the various speakers who spoke on candidates’ behalf, the Ted Cruz surrogates said, hey, you know what, Dr. Ben Carson has dropped out. Come vote for Cruz? is that what you’re saying?”
CARSON: “Yes, some of those speakers said that and we have also tweets and written correspondence to the same.”
KOOIMAN: “Wow. Dr. Carson, we’ll bring in Brian Kilmeade he’s live on the ground in Des Moines. But dr. Carson, I wanted to ask you your wife had firsthand experience with this. What did she tell you?”
CARSON: “Yeah, she spoke at one of the caucus sites and before she got there one of the Cruz people had had, you know, again disseminated that information to the crowd. And the organizers — they said, I’m so glad you here so you can set the record straight and she did. We actually won in that precinct.”
DOOCY: “Look at that. Brian?”
KILMEADE: “Well, I’ll tell you what, that’s interesting because Steve King who I have seen as a big supporter of Ted Cruz tweeted this out at 7:20 p.m. ‘Carson looks like he’s out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope.’ And then has a Twitter address on there. Is that specifically the tweet you’re referring to?”
CARSON: “That’s one of the tweets, yeah. And, you know, here’s the thing. I mean, if Ted Cruz doesn’t know about this then he clearly needs to very quickly get rid of some people in his organization and if he does know about it, isn’t this the exact kind of thing that the American people are tired of? Why would we want to continue with that kind of, you know, shenanigans?”
KOOIMAN: “Dr. Carson, you came in 9 percent last night. Do you think that number would have been higher if the allegations you’re making hadn’t been in place?”
CARSON: “I think they would have been. I got calls from several people who told me their internal intelligence said that I was going to do extraordinarily well.”
DOOCY: “Well, what would you like Ted Cruz to do today?”
CARSON: “Well, if he doesn’t — like I said, if he didn’t know about this, he needs to get rid of the people who were responsible for that. I mean, that would be a high priority for me. And if he did know about it, then he needs to — he needs to come out and admit what he did and try to offer a solution.”
KILMEADE: “Right. It’s interesting because the theory goes that a lot of the evangelical support that you had in first place left and went to Ted Cruz. You wonder if that is indeed the difference. Let’s end on a high note. Ben Carson, I visited one of the caucuses and they had people standing up and saying, vote for my candidate. Here’s what your captain said for you.”
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UNKNOWN FEMALE: “America comes first in this country. And that’s why I stand with dr. Carson. He knows what it’s like, he knows what it took to build this country. He’s an entrepreneur. He was the one that they said could not make —“
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KILMEADE: “If there were persuadables in that room, they were going to switch people, they would have switched to you after hearing your captain at work.”
CARSON: “No question. I spoke at a couple of the caucuses and the people were over the top enthusiastic. So, you know, what this does is it makes me more determined than ever to try to save our country.”
KOOIMAN: “But you said you’re not going home for good, you’re going home to get a fresh set of clothes. What’s ahead for you in New Hampshire?”
CARSON: “Obviously I’m going to be there, I’m going to be talking, of course, we have a debate coming up next week. And, you know, I am by no means even thinking about throwing in the towel. This is just the beginning of the fight.”