YIKES

Aide: Carson Needs Foreign Policy Help

Former CIA agent Duane R. Clarridge.

A top adviser to Ben Carson on terrorism and national security claimed that the candidate needs a lot more information on the Middle East. “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,” former CIA agent Duane R. Clarridge told The New York Times. The campaign shared segments from a calamitous foreign policy interview from this past weekend on Facebook, despite insider conversations about its failure. Additionally, Clarridge said Carson needs weekly conference calls to "make him smart" on foreign policy.

Later, Carson's campaign said that Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of briefings, which they said occur daily and scorned The New York Times for taking advantage "of an elderly gentleman."

"Either the NYT or Mr. Clarridge overstated his involvement I don’t know which," campaign manager Barry Bennett told The Daily Beast. "Mr. Clarridge has no knowledge of who or when Dr. Carson is briefed." He did not respond when asked what the implication was in referring to Clarridge as "an elderly gentleman."