Donald Trump compares Ben Carson’s ‘pathological’ temper to child molestation

Republican presidential co-frontrunner Donald Trump took his rivalry with retired neurosurgeon and non-child-molester Ben Carson to eleven Thursday when he rolled out a riff involving Carson’s alleged “pathological temper” and “child molesters”. Trump’s being criticized not only for comparing Carson to a child molester – something Carson has never, ever been accused of – but for saying that Carson has a “pathological temper” and a violent history.

CNN’s Erin Burnett asked Trump if he was satisfied by Carson’s assurances that his anger was in the past, and Trump said he didn’t know. So far, Trump’s brash, in your face style hasn’t done him…I hear from SO many people who say they like Trump because he “tells it like it is”…but will his cocky, brazen approach eventually do him in?

Personal attacks are one thing; baselessly comparing an opponent (who is nearly universally popular with your own base!) to a child molester is jaw-dropping.

After attacking the people of Iowa for supporting Carson, Trump said he loves the people here, noting, “I think I’m going to buy a farm and move here”.

In his 1990 memoir, “Gifted Hands”, Carson blamed his past violent behavior to a “disease”, which he described as a “pathological temper”. During a rally in front of 1,500 people in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Trump mocked a story Carson tells in his book in which he tried to stab someone in his youth – but the knife was stopped by the victim’s belt buckle. When he says he’s pathological and he says that in the book, I don’t say that. He said he’s got pathological disease.

He said at his speech: “I may leave here and you will say, ‘what he said was not nice.’ But I don’t care – I’ll go back to my life”. On Thursday, Trump reiterated that he was not adding anything new to the conversation separate from what Carson already penned. Anybody with a knife wanna try it on me? I don’t want somebody that went after his mother with a hammer. Believe me it ain’t going to work. “How stupid are the people of the country to believe this crap?” “So that’s who is in second place, and I don’t get it”.

The real estate mogul stepped away from the podium and flipped his belt buckle to show why, he argues, Mr Carson’s story can’t be true. “It doesn’t happen that way”, said Trump.

Trump’s story continued: “And he plunged it into the belt and amazingly the belt stayed totally flat and the knife broke”.

He said rising star Marco Rubio was “weak on illegal immigration”.

There’s no other way to describe this other than a complete meltdown, and if you watch the reaction of most of those sitting in the background it’s clear they’re not comfortable with it, either. While he usually speaks for an hour, Johnson reports, he went on for 95 minutes, forgetting to take questions.

Williams said Trump “cannot fathom” how anyone could be doing better than him in the Republican race.