Thomson Reuters
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks with the media after a campaign event in Pahrump, Nevada
CNN reported Friday that the retired neurosurgeon's campaign was in "crisis" and that the conflict centers around Armstrong Williams, Carson's longtime business manager and an unofficial adviser on his campaign.
Carson's poll numbers have recently plummeted - CNN noted that he was at 22% in mid-October and had dropped to 14% by last Friday - and at least one major fundraiser reportedly abandoned the campaign over leadership problems.
Williams pointed a finger at the Carson campaign, telling CNN that they have to "to do a better job at preparing him."
"Don't give him speeches at the last minute," Williams told the news network. "It's not only on him, it's on them."
This comment came after a recent foreign-policy speech that was widely mocked in the media. Carson repeatedly mispronounced the name of the extremist group Hamas, referring to it as something that sounded closer to "hummus."
Campaign officials hit back at Williams in the CNN story. Campaign manager Barry Bennett said Williams was not "always helpful" and argued that the business manager should defend the candidate. Communication director Doug Watts said Williams presented the campaign with "some problems" stemming from "being on the outside." He also said Carson had expressed frustration with Williams.
Watts told Business Insider that the campaign "operates well" and suggested that any negative perceptions of the campaign that stems from stories like these will likely be forgotten by the next day.
"[Williams] is one person outside the campaign who is a valuable contributor to the campaign who took some frustrations of his to his good friend, … who works for CNN rather than him talking to me or Barry directly," Watts said.
"There are natural tensions; there's no crisis," he added. "We just hit $50 million in fundraising. We have some bad polls we have to correct, which is part of the campaign function."
When asked what the campaign's plan was for bringing Carson back up in the polls, Watts replied, "I'm not telling you, but of course we have a plan."
This wasn't the first time Williams has caused problems for Carson's campaign. Last month, he gave the phone number of one of Carson's national security advisers to a New York Times reporter. In the resulting interview, the adviser suggested that Carson was deficient on foreign policy.
Carson's campaign then suggested that the paper was taking "advantage of an elderly gentleman," referring to Duane Clarridge, the national-security adviser. Williams then defended Clarridge and pushed back on the campaign's characterization of him.
"He's just a good guy. He's really a good guy," Williams said of Clarridge at the time. "I know that [the Carson campaign] mentioned in that press release 'elderly,' but that man is sharp as a tack."
Business Insider has reached out to Williams for comment and will update this post if we hear back.