There's no ladder deep enough or rope long enough to pull Ben Carson out the sunken place. In response to the backlash generated by Donald Trump's abysmal response to the events in Charlottesville, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development said that the widespread public outrage is "being blown out of proportion." The president, in his initial reaction to this weekend's tragic events, came under fire for denouncing violence "on many sides." While visiting flood-ravaged communities in Louisiana on Monday, Carson mirrored that controversial statement equating the counter-protesters with white nationalist hate groups.

Carson spoke at length about the widespread criticism leveled against Trump saying, “When he talks about the fact that hatred and bigotry and these things are unacceptable he’s talking about everybody," he said. "You’d think he was saying that hatred and bigotry are unacceptable except by neo-Nazis." Carson went on to suggest that the president's statement was spun out of context by the media. "We really have got to begin to think more logically and stop trying to stir up controversy and start concentrating on the issues that threaten us and threaten our children,” he said. “We all have to recognize that there are other things that are important here and don’t get caught up in these little squabbles and blow them out of proportion,” Carson said, “and spend all of our time talking about that.”

After Carson's talk on Monday, the president gave an impromptu conference in New York on Tuesday, where he bore down on his original statement equating the white supremacists on one side with the "alt-left" on the other side.

If nothing else, Carson can always be counted on for the unwarranted cosign. Good luck with that.