Donald Trump questioned the narrative of Ben Carson’s rough upbringing on Thursday, saying that the retired neurosurgeon’s previous accounts could be a “total fabrication.”
“The Carson story is either a total fabrication or, if true, even worse-trying to hit mother over the head with a hammer or stabbing friend!” he tweeted Thursday evening.
Trump and Carson, the two national Republican front-runners, have largely bonded together over the course of the campaign, most recently using their leverage to try and force changes to the debates organized by the Republican National Committee. But as Carson has surged, Trump has increasingly been willing to criticize Carson — even though Carson has not done the same to Trump.
Trump’s comments follow a CNN investigation published earlier Thursday that probed his descriptions of his violent past. Carson has said he attacked a boy named Bob with a knife and hit another child named Jerry with a lock. Carson said Thursday that those names weren’t real, and that the person he once tried to stab was an unidentified “close relative.”
Carson, who frequently critiques the media, has called CNN’s investigation “silly.”