9/11 mistake

Carson blames the media for 9/11 mistake

By Nick Gass

Ben Carson continued to walk back his assertion on Monday night that, like Donald Trump, he also saw video footage of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11, blaming the media in the process for having “an agenda.”

“Well what we were talking about was the reaction of Muslims after the 9/11 attack, and if they were in a celebratory mood,” the retired neurosurgeon and current Republican candidate told Fox News’ “The Kelly File.” “And you know, I was really focusing on that it was an inappropriate thing to do, no matter where they were. They asked me: Did I see the film? I did see the film. I don’t know where they were, but I did see a film of Muslims celebrating. And I was making the point that it was inappropriate.”

Asked whether he would admit to a lack of caution in answering the question from reporters, Carson said he would.

“Yeah, yeah. I thought we were just talking about the fact that Muslims were inappropriately celebrating,” he said. “I didn’t know that they had an agenda behind the question.”

Carson then said that he had not heard Trump's remarks in which he claimed to have seen “thousands” of people “cheering” and tailgating across the river from the smoldering rubble of the twin towers in lower Manhattan in September 2001.

Trump's special counsel Michael Cohen told CNN's “New Day” on Tuesday morning that whether “it’s thousands and thousands or a thousand people or even just one person,” the exact number of people who were celebrating the collapse of the World Trade Center is “irrelevant.”

During a press availability earlier Monday in Nevada, a reporter asked Carson: “Dr. Carson, were American Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11 when the towers fell?”

“Did you hear about that or see that?” the reporter asked, to which Carson said he had.

Asked to expand on that, Carson gave a generic response in which he said that there would always be people responding “inappropriately to virtually everything.”

“I saw the film of it, yeah,” Carson said. “In New Jersey?” another reporter asked, to which Carson replied in the affirmative, adding that he had seen the film of people celebrating, “the newsreels.”

Later, Carson's campaign told ABC News that its candidate was referring to footage he saw originating in the Middle East, not New Jersey.

“He was rather thinking of the protests going on in the Middle East and some of the demonstrations that were going on in celebration of the towers going down,” spokesman Doug Watts told the network.