Donald Trump sees no need to apologize to Ben Carson for comments he made yesterday about Carson’s religion, according to ABC News.
The Republican presidential hopeful noted at a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Saturday that he is a Presbyterian—a denomination that he described as “down the middle of the road.” He then made a contrast with Carson’s denomination: “I mean, Seventh-day Adventist, I don’t know about, I just don’t know about.”
Once again in the hot seat, Trump explained his comment to ABC News. “I know nothing about it [the Seventh-day Adventist Church], really—I’m a Presbyterian and I had mentioned that, and I did say I don’t know about it, and in fact those are my exact words, so I just really don’t know about the Seventh-day Adventists, and that’s what I said,” Trump stated to the network.
The billionaire businessman added that he would never criticize someone’s religion. “I said exactly, ‘I don’t know about it.’ That’s not an insult,” he stated.
With Trump’s poll numbers slipping to second place behind Carson’s in Iowa, he denied that his statement was calculated to attract more evangelicals. Seventh-day Adventists are Protestants who worship on Saturday, believe that the creation story in Genesis is literal and warn that Christ’s second coming is imminent. But some conservative evangelicals say that adherents of the faith are not Christians.
Carson’s campaign did not immediately respond to Trump on the religion issue. But Carson did answer Trump’s criticism that he’s “super low energy.” The retired neurosurgeon explained that he’s not low energy—just soft-spoken. Carson added that his energy level is just fine, pointing to the consecutive 18 to 20 hours he would spend in operating rooms.
Read more at ABC News.