Renowned former neurosurgeon Ben Carson has formally announced his presidential campaign in a bid to win the Republican nomination in 2016, the Associated Press reports.
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Carson has never held public office and, as AP notes, is expected to be the only well-recognized African American to put his hat in the ring for the Republican presidential primary.
"I'm willing to be part of the equation, and therefore, I'm announcing my candidacy for president of the United States of America," he said in an interview with WKRC in Ohio, which aired Sunday.
He is scheduled to make another announcement during a speech in Detroit Monday.
Carson's name gained national recognition after he became the first surgeon to successfully separate twins conjoined at the head. Born in poverty in Detroit and raised by a single mother, he became head of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center pediatric neurosurgery unit in Baltimore.
Carson has heavily criticized President Barack Obama on everything from the Affordable Care Act to foreign policy. He has made news recently within the political sphere for making such controversial comments as comparing the Affordable Care Act to slavery, insinuating that the president is a psychopath and implying that being gay is a choice by using prison as an example.
Read more at Yahoo News.
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