Former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Sunday that Republican party leaders prefer Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump for president.
“The establishment Republicans would prefer to see someone like Hillary Clinton than they would Donald Trump,” Carson said Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable,” a radio show hosted by supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York on Sunday.
After dropping out of the race for the Republican nomination Carson, a former neurosurgeon and promotional speaker, endorsed Trump, calling him a fellow outsider.
“The establishment in the Republican Party is scared out of their wits about the possibility of someone like Donald Trump,” Carson said, “who they don’t have control over.”
Carson’s view has some support. In recent weeks, increasing numbers of Republican officials, though few elected ones, have indicated they might back Clinton over Trump.
Carson himself gave Trump less than full-throated backing Sunday.
“He has some major defects,” Carson said. “There’s no question about it, just like the rest of us.”
“Are there better people?” Carson asked. “Probably.”
But, he argued: “Right now, what we need is somebody who can help restore the confidence of the American people. No one believes in the government anymore.”
