BEN CARSON: Someone tell Donald Trump what 'pathological' means
Trump has repeatedly latched onto Carson's description of having a "pathological temper" as a young teenager.
The real-estate mogul suggested that Carson has an incurable "pathological disease" and even compared the disease to that of incurable child molesters.
But Carson said Friday in South Carolina that someone should inform Trump what the word "pathological" means.
"It's the not the kind of dialogue that I would ever engage in. And I'm hopeful that maybe his advisers will help him to understand the word 'pathological' and recognize that does not denote 'incurable,'" Carson said when a reporter asked whether Trump's rhetoric was "appropriate" for a Republican front-runner.
"It's not the same," Carson added. "It simply is an adjective that describes something that is highly abnormal - and something that fortunately I've been able to be delivered from for half a century now."
Carson was responding to Trump's vicious Thursday-night speech in Iowa, in which the billionaire businessman repeatedly ripped Carson's claims of having a violent childhood some 50 years ago. In particular, Trump latched onto Carson's description of having a youthful "pathological temper" that he overcame in order to become a world-renowned brain surgeon.
"He goes into the bathroom for a couple hours, and comes out, and now he's religious," Trump said Thursday. "And the people of Iowa believe him. Give me a break. Give me a break. It doesn't happen that way. It doesn't happen that way."
Trump repeatedly compared Carson's supposedly incurable temper to child molesters.
"If you're a child molester - a sick puppy, you're a child molester - there's no cure for that," he said. "There's only one cure. We don't want to talk about that cure. That's the ultimate cure."