On Thursday, March 29, Ben Carson found himself in the news again. This time the problem wasn't his purchase of an expensive dining hutch (for which the housing secretary received condign criticism, including from this magazine) or his aim of shortening his agency's garbled mission statement (for…
Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, pinned the blame for his department’s purchase of a $31,000 dining room set for his office on his wife and staff. In testimony before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday, Carson also said the reason he authorized the purchase of new…
Public officials tend to spend too much money on themselves and their offices. It’s an unfortunate part of the human condition—by definition public officials spend resources that don’t belong to them, and so they will often spend more than they have to. Media allegations of excessive spending by…
Ben Carson’s new silverware. Ironically, Ben Carson might not get to enjoy his newly refurbished office at HUD for very long, if recent history is our guide. This from CNN:
Activists who oppose abortion doubted Donald Trump when he was a candidate because he had once described himself as "very pro-choice." A year into his presidency, however, they happily point to victories he has achieved for them.
As Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, and untold others ramp up their campaigns for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, they’re going to be in for a surprise. A candidate neither they nor the political class regard as a serious contender is ahead of them in organizing a well-financed and unique…
Montana representative Ryan Zinke is now set to become President Donald Trump's Interior secretary, after the Senate approved him in a bipartisan, though not overwhelming vote on Wednesday.
As the Trump administration rolled back President Obama's guidelines to public schools regarding transgender students' access to the bathroom of their choice, a new rule from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has taken effect to ensure that transgender individuals have full…
A homeless man, woman, or child needs a bed, a roof, a meal—and typically a lot besides. Just as home means something greater than the presence of these three, homelessness is much more than their absence.
While members of the press gradually filled their designated seats at the back of the hearing room where Dr. Ben Carson would undergo uncommonly friendly questioning about his plans to lead the federal department of Housing and Urban Development, members of the Carson family linked up in the…
Donald Trump will make Ben Carson his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Cleveland
Plagiarize Ben Carson, and he doesn't mind. Say he has "pathological disease" — compare his mind to that of a child molester — and he's unbothered. Wrong him, and he shall not revenge.
It's understandably difficult to champion a man who once likened you to a pathological child molester. This is the plight of the polite and mild-mannered Ben Carson, who has appeared downright tepid about his endorsement of Donald Trump.
Former presidential candidate Ben Carson said Thursday that he's moving in the direction of endorsing Donald Trump for president, calling the New York businessman "a thinking individual".
Over the next two weeks, the non-Donald Trump candidates (except for Ben Carson) will stay in the race. That's fine. And the good news (if you're in the anti-Trump camp) is that all they have to do is pursue their enlightened self-interest, and that their interests pretty much coincide.
Ben Carson said Wednesday that he does not see a "political path forward" in the GOP nominating contest, all but assuring that he will formally drop out of the race despite assuring supporters that he will remain active moving forward.
Ben Carson and John Kasich will finish far from the top on Super Tuesday. But their presence in the campaign could do more than merely limit votes for Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
At the beginning of Saturday night's Republican presidential debate, the moderators called Ben Carson's name, but for some reason he didn't come out onto the GOP debate stage. He stayed back for a few minutes, and eventually came out. Then the moderators seemed to forget about John Kasich.
The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with staff writer Jay Cost on the upcoming primaries and who among the remaining candidates has a real shot at the nomination.
How unusual is this year's GOP presidential race?
A new poll of Iowa Republicans shows Texas senator Ted Cruz moving into a close second to Donald Trump in the race for the presidential nomination. The Quinnipiac poll of 600 likely GOP caucusgoers found 25 support Trump while 23 percent support Cruz.
Generally speaking, The Weekly Standard is from the Edith Piaf school of second thoughts. We don’t have many. And when we do, we keep quiet about them. As the great chanteuse put it: Non, je ne regrette rien.
Sioux City, Iowa
If Donald Trump supporters haven’t abandoned him yet, there’s little reason to believe they’ll do so now. But it’s worth laying out a slice of what it is they’re defending, what it is they’re excusing, and what it is they’re encouraging. Let’s review the past 72 hours of crazy with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's newly released book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, will debut next week as #5 on the New York Times bestseller list. Trump's book hit shelves November 3.
Milwaukee
At last, a debate that lived up to its billing. The Fox Business Network promised this would be about economic policy, and not about fantasy football, or personalities, and its panelists delivered. Despite an occasional barb, including a neat put-down of Donald Trump by Carly Fiorina, we actually…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the Ben Carson campaign, the media's coverage of it, and how Carson is winning.
Ben Carson remains in the presidential race notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that the retired neurosurgeon and first-time-candidate-for-any-office wouldn’t last this long. Indeed, the most recent polls show Carson leading Donald Trump in Iowa, which kicks off the presidential primary season…
Politico has made significant changes to a report claiming 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson "fabricated" his story about being offered full scholarship to attend West Point, and there is nothing in the story to indicate that the article has been edited.
In Ben Carson's bestselling book, Gifted Hands, he recounts a tale about how as a top ROTC student in Detroit growing up he had an opportunity to meet General William Westmoreland. Apparently, the meeting went well. According to Carson, "Later I was offered a full scholarship to West Point."
Black voters have long been aligned with the Democratic party. In the Barack Obama era, the alignment has been closer than ever, with 2012 black turnout higher and more Democratic than ever. If Hillary Clinton hopes to win the White House, she'll need to get similar numbers to Obama among black…
The leading Republican presidential candidate in donor and establishment support is down to just four percent of the vote in a new national poll. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, is in a far fifth place in the latest Quinnipiac poll, getting four percent and trailing Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio,…
What were they thinking? I’m referring to the CNBC questioners in last night’s Republican presidential debate. They started the 2-hour session by asking Donald Trump if he was conducting “a comic book version” of a campaign? Mike Huckabee was asked to rate Trump’s “moral authority” to be…
Tonight’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four.
Boulder, Colo.
In a lot of ways, tonight’s Republican debate looks like the lowest-stakes of the three debates so far. We know what the candidates all look like in a debate setting; we know which lanes they're each slotted into. And while there will be ten candidates on stage, the field really isn't that big…
Jill Biden, the wife of Vice President Joe Biden, is a doctor of education. Ben Carson, a Republican presidential candidate, is a medical doctor.
A new national poll of Republican primary voters finds retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson in the lead, overtaking reality TV star and New York businessman Donald Trump. The CBS News/New York Times poll found 26 percent of Republican primary voters polled support Carson, while 22 percent support Trump.…
A new poll finds that Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is beating Donald Trump in Iowa. The poll has been released by Quinnipiac University.
Time flies when you’re having fun. It’s been two months since the first Republican presidential debate. How do things now stand for the party upon whose success next year rest all of our hopes for constitutional government at home and a manageable world abroad?
A new poll by Fox News finds Donald Trump remains the leader of the Republican pack. Trump holds 24 percent of the vote, but is in a virtual tie with Ben Carson, who is getting 23 percent of the vote.
It was just over a week ago when House majority leader Kevin McCarthy first considered dropping out of the race for speaker.
How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?
How big a problem is it that the two leading Republican candidates for president aren’t actually qualified to be president?
The media have been quite zealously attacking Ben Carson for criticizing aspects of Islam that he believes are incompatible with the American political system. The skeptical among us -- and that, unfortunately, must include every discerning consumer of mainstream media -- would note that much of…
Because presidential politics are as much about in-group signaling as actual policy, Ben Carson is locked in a media-generated controversy about whether or not he’d be down with having a Muslim president. Carson was asked about this deeply-important question on Meet the Press. He said no. And when…
A new CNN poll of the registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters finds Carly Fiorina taking second place in the GOP presidential primary, behind Donald Trump and just one point ahead of Ben Carson. The poll, taken over the course of the three days following CNN's September 16 debate, found…
Say what you will about the Romney 2012 campaign, but Stuart Stevens is bright, perceptive, and candid—always worth listening to. So I was struck by his observation about Donald Trump during the course of an interview with New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman: “For Donald Trump to win, everything we…
It's fight night again and if the second GOP debate is anything like the first (no guarantees on that, by the way) then whatever happens tonight will shape the next several weeks of the race.
Here’s what I’d like to hear from each of the Republican presidential candidates in tonight’s nationally televised debate:
A new poll of the Republican presidential primary from the New York Times and CBS News shows consensus frontrunner Donald Trump making "modest" gains, from 24 percent at the beginning of August to 27 percent. But his closest rival for the nominatjon, Ben Carson, has seen a bigger jump in that time,…
New polls of likely Republican voters in two early primary states show Donald Trump maintaining a solid lead for the presidential nomination. The CBS News/YouGov tracking polls in both Iowa and New Hampshire show the real-estate magnate and reality TV star with big leads in those states.
Newt Gingrich spoke with Bill Kristol about the 2016 presidential race, Donald Trump, and Ben Carson:
The summer of Trump rolls into autumn. Now the GOP frontrunner, that swashbuckling renegade presidential candidate will take the stage Wednesday afternoon at a rally behind the U.S. Capitol to protest the Iran nuclear pact. Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck will be there too, but it’s Trump who…
With the summer of Trump coming to a close, the fall might belong to Dr. Ben Carson. Earlier this year, we labeled Carson "the 2016 campaign’s most interesting long shot" -- but that long-shot is seeing a rise in the polls in Iowa, and nationally.
The results of the latest straw poll of WEEKLY STANDARD readers are in. It's not a scientific poll, of course—but since the respondents are very perceptive WEEKLY STANDARD readers, I'm going to claim (why not?) that the results are a suggestive leading indicator of where the GOP race may be going.
A few people have asked me to elaborate on the thought I tried hurriedly to express at the end of the This Week roundtable. Here it is: Republicans have a problem, while Democrats have a crisis.
A new Monmouth poll of registered or leaning Republican primary voters nationally finds New York businessman Donald Trump continuing to lead in the crowded GOP field. Trump's support is at 30 percent, 4 points higher than he was in Monmouth's August poll and 17 points higher than in its July poll.
A new poll of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa finds Donald Trump and Ben Carson tied for the lead at 23 percent support. The Monmouth University poll is the first since July to show Trump not in the sole lead position in Iowa.
A new poll of "usual" Republican primary voters in New Hampshire gives Donald Trump his biggest lead yet in the Granite State. The Public Policy Polling survey found Trump with 35 percent support, a good 26-point advantage over the next closest GOP candidate, Ohio governor John Kasich at 11…
In an interview this morning with CNN, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson indicated that he might be open to being Donald Trump's vice presidential pick.
A new poll of likely GOP caucusgoers in Iowa finds that Marco Rubio and Ben Carson made the most positive impression in the first Republican debate.
Last night’s debate in Cleveland won’t change the course of the Republican presidential race. But it’s likely to affect individual candidates and how they’re viewed. Some gained, some faltered, some were unaffected.
Goffstown, N.H.
As the news of the nuclear deal reached between the United States, its Western allies, and the Islamic Republican of Iran broke Tuesday morning, Republican presidential candidates were nearly unanimous in condemning the agreement.
Both Florida Republicans running for president are tied for first among registered voters in their party, according to a new poll of the Sunshine State from Quinnipiac.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Michael Warren on the entrance into the 2016 GOP field of hopefuls by Carly Fiorina and Dr. Ben Carson.
Former neurosurgen Ben Carson says he's "in" the presidential race. Carson announced his run in a TV interview Sunday evening, with a more formal announcement Monday in Detroit, his hometown. Here's Carson announcing the run on Twitter:
Several of the likely Republican candidates for president have spoken out in defense of Indiana governor Mike Pence and his decision to sign the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. CNN reports that several White House hopefuls, including Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and…
A new poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC News shows Florida senator Marco Rubio and Wisconsin governor Scott Walker have the most goodwill among Republican primary voters ahead of both men's possible bids for the presidency.
Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who made political waves in 2013 with a pointed critique of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast, is taking a step closer to a presidential campaign of his own. Carson announced Tuesday he is launching an exploratory committee for a run in 2016.…
It’s still two years before the next president takes the oath of office, but the contest that will determine who raises his right hand that day started in earnest last month for Republicans, with a grassroots gathering in Iowa and a meeting of high-dollar donors in California.
Ben Carson is warming to the idea of running for president. Since the famous brain surgeon retired last year from Johns Hopkins Hospital, he’s been speaking around the country to enthusiastic audiences. And they’ve affected his thinking about seeking national office.
Dr. Ben Carson has just launched the Save Our Healthcare Project, the goal of which is “to replace Obamacare with positive, patient-centered reforms to ensure all Americans have access to high-quality care.” In the launch’s initial phase, Carson lists his seven core principles of real health care…