March 16, 2016

Ben Carson Thinks He Has a Shot of Being Donald Trump’s Running Mate

He claims the two discussed a role for him in a Trump administration before he endorsed the front-runner.

Lynne Sladky/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Last week, Ben Carson endorsed Donald Trump, saying, “With our support, I am sure that we can help restore America’s values and faith.” The following day he suggested he would be willing to serve as Trump’s running mate, should the real estate mogul secure the Republican nomination, and he noted that he had told Trump as much. But this was more than just talk. Carson’s camp is taking steps to position Carson as the Republican vice presidential nominee, according to a Carson insider, and Carson believes he stands a good chance of being offered a spot on the ticket.

Before agreeing to endorse Trump on Friday, Carson met privately with the front-runner. In an interview with NewsMax on Monday, Carson said his sit-down with Trump had included discussion of a role for the former neurosurgeon in a Trump administration.

Trump “will surround himself with very good people,” Carson told NewsMax. Asked if he would be one of them, Carson replied, “I will be doing things as well…certainly in an advisory capacity.” Pressed on whether there had been concrete talk about a role for Carson in a Trump administration, Carson replied, “Yeah.”

The Carson insider says Carson left his meeting with Trump believing he was well positioned for the veep slot on a Trump ticket. “He needs me more than I need him,” Carson boasted to his top staff, according to the source, who noted that Carson would likely soon start a push to be Trump’s vice presidential pick. Carson’s campaign spokesman forwarded a request for comment to longtime Carson associate Armstrong Williams, who said he had no comment.

For someone who is apparently enthusiastic about joining a Trump administration, Carson struggled to say much of anything nice about Trump during the rest of the NewsMax interview. Carson brought up his preferences for other candidates and described his decision to back the bombastic tycoon as purely pragmatic.

“I didn’t see a path for Kasich, who I like, or for Rubio, who I like,” Carson explained. “As far as Cruz is concerned, I don’t think he’s going to be able to draw independents and Democrats unless he has some miraculous change.”

“Is there another scenario that I would have preferred? Yes,” Carson said. “But that scenario isn’t available.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate