Carson Slams Reporting On Past Violence; Replay of Carson Interview; Carson Not Proud Of Past Rage Episodes; Carson Slams Reporting; Politico Questions Carson's Story.
BLITZER: Let's get to the race for the White House. Dr. Ben Carson, he's getting increasingly assertive now in rejecting questions that have been raised about his violent teenager years. CNN reporters, including our own Maeve Reston, have attempted to corroborate incidents that Carson describes in detail in his autobiography as well as in interviews and public statements. But Carson blasted the reporting, launched into an aggressive attack on the media. Here's part of his interview earlier today with CNN's Alisyn Camerota.</s>DR. BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (via telephone): I think it's pathetic. And, basically, what the media does is they try to get you distracted with all of this stuff so that you don't talk about the things that are important because we have so many important things. And, you know, I'm not proud of the fact that I had these rage episodes, but I am proud of the fact that I was able to get over them.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look, of course.</s>CARSON: And my message has been that you can escape from that kind of angry.</s>CAMEROTA: Yes, people are resonating with that message.</s>CARSON: And some of the victims were members of my family, I understand that and I will not let them be victimized again by the media. And if you choose to believe that I'm incapable of these acts, I guess that's kind of a compliment to me. That's good.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Look, people are - believe - it is fascinating to hear about your story of transformation, how you went from an angry young man to the soft spoken doctor, renowned surgeon that we see today. But what's interesting is that our reporter did go to your campaign to ask, can we talk to these people? And your campaign wasn't willing to make them available. This is the Seminole story of your youth, of how you -</s>CARSON: So why - why would they -</s>CAMEROTA: Why not? Why can't we talk to them?</s>CARSON: Why would they -- why would they want to victimize these people by exposing them to you?</s>CAMEROTA: It's not victim - how is it victimizing them by saying, well us more about this story, we're interested?</s>CARSON: The - the story is well documented. If you choose not to believe it, if it doesn't fit the narrative that you want, that's fine, OK. Let's let the American people decide.</s>CAMEROTA: But, Dr. Carson, your story has changed. For instance, first you say that Bob was your close friend who you almost killed and then yesterday you said well actually his name wasn't Bob. I changed the names. And that's fine. People do that all the time, Dr. Carson, in their memoirs.</s>CARSON: I - I - I changed - I changed names throughout all the books -</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>CARSON: Even of patients -</s>CAMEROTA: People -</s>CARSON: Because - and unless I have specific permission from them to use their names, that's an inappropriate thing to do.</s>CAMEROTA: Of course. And people change the names in their memoirs all the time, but they note that. They note that at the beginning if they say that fictitious names are going to be used. But nevertheless, then you change it to say that he was not actually your close friend, he was a family member. So -</s>CARSON: He was a family - he was a family member.</s>CAMEROTA: OK.</s>CARSON: And, you know, I -I really don't want to expose him further. You know, I've talked to him. You know, he would prefer to stay out of the media. And I think - I want to respect that. What I really want to do is - is help people, American people, although they seem to understand it a lot already, that one of the tactics that is used by you guys in the media, particularly when someone is doing very well, is, let's find a way to get them distracted and get all the people distracted so that we can get away from the real issues. And I'm simply not going to allow that to occur.</s>CAMEROTA: Look, Dr. Carson, I know you call this tactics. It's called vetting in politics. You know it well just from the short time that you've been involved in vetting - campaigns.</s>CARSON: Is that what was done with the current president? Is that what you guys did with him?</s>CAMEROTA: Yes. As a matter of fact, it -</s>CARSON: No, you did not. Give me a break.</s>CAMEROTA: President Obama's autobiography, "Dreams of My Father," was also vetted. You will recall, Dr. Carson, that people -</s>CARSON: Give me a break.</s>CAMEROTA: Dr. Carson -</s>CARSON: Are you kidding.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's bring in CNN's Maeve Reston and Nia-Malika Henderson. Also our justice reporter Scott Glover. He's joining us from Los Angeles. Scott, in that NEW DAY interview, Alisyn asked Dr. Carson about variations in his account of some of those incidents when he was, what, 13, 14 years old. What are some of the discrepancies?</s>SCOTT GLOVER, CNN JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, he's described Bob - again by the first name of Bob, which he very recently said was a fictionalized name. He's described him as a friend and as a classmate and now he is describing him as a close relative. That's new information. And it's information that would have been helpful to us when we went to the campaign initially in a very transparent way and said that we were reporting on these incidents and asked for their help in, you know, identifying some of the people. There's another incident regarding an attack on his mother. He writes in "Gifted Hands" about having an argument with her about what clothes to wear and attempting to attack her when her - his brother intervenes and stops that from happening. He has subsequently spoken of an incident involving an argument over clothes where he attempts to attack her with a hammer and his brother intervenes. Now, I don't know if these are two separate incidents in which he attempted to attack her over, you know, an argument over clothes, but we've asked for some clarification on that, are they two incidents, are they one, you know, things off this nature. And Dr. Carson has said that, you know, we've not talked to people from various points of his life and said that the rock throwing incident that we had written about occurred when he was seven or eight. Well, we have spoken with people from earlier periods in his life, but with due respect, it's in some ways beside the point because he says that he committed various acts as a teenager, including hitting people with bricks and rocks and bats. The stabbing attempt happens around that time. According to this most recent version of events, the attack on his mom happens around then. And we certainly have talked to people who knew him as a young teenager and people who, in fact, lived next door to him. And again, no one is directly challenging what he has said. They're just saying that they don't recognize him as that person.</s>BLITZER: Maeve, what he does say, what he told Alisyn, was that in his book he changed the names not only of these young people with whom he had these violent encounters, if you will, but also with patients down the road to protect their privacy, to protect - so their identity wouldn't be disclosed. When you were researching this article for cnn.com, did the campaign tell you that they were - that he had - which is not all that uncommon in autobiographies, sometimes people change the names to protect people's privacy, protect their identity - had they told you that?</s>MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: They had not and as Scott just said, you know, we sent them a list of questions more than a week ago saying that we had contacted Jerrys and Bobs who went to school with Dr. Carson, could they give us the last names, et cetera. They refused to provide any information at all, but they certainly didn't say that - that the names at that time were fictitious. Same when we went to them with our findings before we published our story on cnn.com. Again, there was no mention of these being fictitious names. And I will note, you know, in "Gifted Hands" that - that while it is true that you - that often authors do try to protect the identity of people in their books, that Dr. Carson's book does have some notations in it. For example at one point in an introduction he changes the blood type of a patient that he's talking about. There's an asterisk next to that saying, changing the blood type to protect this person's identity. We did not see any stars next to Bob or Jerry's names, so that's what we've asked for further clarification on from the campaign.</s>BLITZER: He said he also says if these people, and he spoke to one of them as recently as yesterday, if they want to go public, that's their prerogative -</s>RESTON: Right.</s>BLITZER: But he's not going to share their identity because they want their privacy.</s>RESTON: Right.</s>BLITZER: All right, stand by, guys, we're going to have much more on this coming up. Also, some new questions surfacing today about another part of Dr. Ben Carson's past, a story about West Point. His business manager and good friend, Armstrong Williams, is standing by. We're going to discuss these latest developments with Armstrong when we come back.