Ben Carson Turns Down Job in Donald Trump Administration

One year ago, Ben Carson was trying to convince America he could run the country's entire government. Now, he thinks even one department would be too much.

Carson has turned down a possible role in Donald Trump's administration citing lack of experience, his business manager said Tuesday. Trump offered Carson any job he wanted, but the retired neurosurgeon's lack of government experience would make him unqualified for a post, the manager said.

"The President-elect offered him anything he wanted to do," Armstrong Williams, the manager, told Circa. "But in the end he didn't want anything." Williams added, "his background didn't prepare him to run a federal agency."

Carson's name had been floated for several potential cabinet positions, including secretary of Education or secretary of Health and Human Services.

But despite Trump offering Carson a "buffet" of cabinet options, according to The New York Times, Carson turned them down.

“He’d be like a fish out of water,” Williams told the Times of Carson's lack of government qualifications.

During a bitter general election season, Carson became one of Trump's strongest (and few) surrogates, especially near the end as women came forward to say they were sexually assaulted by Trump. In one instance, Carson said people should put away their Judeo-Christian values during a presidential campaign.

It was a far cry from the conservative Christian image that made him an early candidate for the GOP nomination.

Despite eventually becoming one of Trump's top allies, he was the subject of some of Trump's most blistering criticism on the campaign trail.

In one speech — after it was revealed that Carson made up a story about going to West Point on a full scholarship — Trump called him a "pathological liar" and even compared it to being a child molester.

"There’s no cure for (being a pathological liar)," Trump said at the time. "And I did one of the shows today. And I don’t want to say what I said. But I’ll tell you anyway.

"I said that if you’re a child molester, a sick puppy, you’re a child molester, there’s no cure for that. There’s only one cure—we don’t want to talk about that cure. That’s the ultimate cure. Well, there’s two, there’s death, and the other thing."

On Twitter, Trump has said that Carson is "incapable of understanding foreign policy," is "very weak on illegal Immigration" and "has never created a job in his life."

Image via Disney | ABC Television Group, Flickr, used under Creative Commons