Reuters/Earnie Grafton
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
The lengthy piece begins with Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and conservative favorite, reacting to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech. One of Carson's advisers said Obama looked good and Carson responded by calling the president a "psychopath."
"Like most psychopaths," Carson said. "That's why they're successful. That's the way they look. They all look great."
Carson is no stranger to controversial statements. Earlier his month, the bestselling book author drew national headlines after he said men who come out as gay in prison prove homosexuality is a choice. And last year, Carson repeatedly compared the US to Nazi Germany.
"I mean, [our society is] very much like Nazi Germany," he said in one interview, according to Talking Points Memo. "And I know you're not supposed to say 'Nazi Germany,' but I don't care about political correctness. You know, you had a government using its tools to intimidate the population. We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe."
He repeated this position in the GQ profile - even while visiting Israel's Holocaust museum.
"On several occasions, I tried to get Carson to concede that his analogy likening the U.S. to Nazi Germany was out of line," GQ's Jason Zengerle wrote. "Our longest discussion about the matter came in Jerusalem, in the cafeteria of the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem. We'd spent the previous ninety minutes touring the museum, followed by Carson entering Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance and, black kippah atop his head, laying a wreath. ... Given all this, I asked Carson, did it make him reconsider his analogy?"
Carson again didn't budge.
"Not at all," he said. "It makes [the Nazi comparison] even stronger."
Aslo during his trip to Israel, Carson reportedly compared Syrian civil war to the racially charged riots in Ferguson, Missouri, that erupted last year. Carson visited the Golan Heights, disputed territory under Israeli control, and an Israeli soldier told him the Islamist fighters are from Morocco and Europe instead of Syria. Carson said the US had the same problem of outside "troublemakers" stirring up violence.
"It's just like the troublemakers in Ferguson," Carson replied.