Ben Carson announces campaign is over

Ben Carson signaled his exit from the race on Wednesday following a string of dismal performances. | John Shinkle

'I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation,' the retired neurosurgeon said.

Ben Carson is suspending his bid for the presidency, the retired neurosurgeon announced Friday, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

"Even though I might be leaving the campaign trail, you know there’s a lot of people who love me, they just won’t vote for me. But I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation," he said.

The outgoing candidate peppered his speech with implicit warnings to the country about its future, both for fellow candidates and for the media, which intensely scrutinized claims about his biography throughout the course of his campaign.
“You don’t need to have much of a developed brain to react, to react in fear," Carson said in urging a more thoughtful, productive national political discourse. "Animals can do that; lizards do that.”

Later in the speech, Carson appealed to the audience to get active and informed.

“We cannot continue to allow ourselves to be influenced and molded by the political class and by the media. That is going to destroy us," he said, remarking that it's "kind of sad" that the press is the only business protected by the Constitution "because they were supposed to be the allies of the people."

Carson signaled his exit from the race on Wednesday following a string of dismal performances in primaries and caucuses, writing in a statement that he saw no path to claim the Republican nomination.

"I do not see a political path forward in light of last evening’s Super Tuesday primary results," Carson said in the statement released Wednesday, a day before he skipped the 11th Republican debate in his hometown of Detroit.

The following day, he danced around whether he was formally leaving the race. “I want people to start thinking about the real issues that are threatening America right now; those issues are not how big someone’s hands are, or how long someone’s nose is," Carson told Yahoo News' Katie Couric on Thursday.

Earlier on Friday, it was announced that Carson will serve as national chairman of My Faith Votes, a group focused on Christian voter turnout.


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