Dr. Ben Carson asked MSNBC to cut a Morning Joe panelist's microphone on Friday during a testy interview about the allegations of sexual misconduct against Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Carson, a Trump rival-turned surrogate, got into a spat with BBC's Katty Kay after the latter asked if he thought the female accusers against Trump were liars. Carson had suggested earlier that a woman's account of being groped on an airplane by Trump had holes. Trump himself has denied all the allegations against him.
"Are you saying that these woman are lying?" Kay asked.
"That's your characterization, because you need to characterize it that way to try to make me the bad guy," Carson said, setting off a fury of crosstalk.
As Kay and host Joe Scarborough protested, Carson got unusually heated.
"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop," he said. "Hey, can you turn her microphone off, please? Turn her microphone off so I can talk?"
"No!" Scarborough said. "It's a simple question. Yes or no, do you believe these woman are lying or not? Nobody's trying to paint you as a bad guy. We just want an answer. Straight talk."
"It doesn't matter whether they're lying or not—" Carson started.
"Of course it matters!" Kay said.
"It doesn't matter whether they're lying or not," he said. "What matters is that the train is going off the cliff. We're taking our eye off of that, and we're getting involved in other issues."
Kay interjected, saying the truth of the allegations did matter.
"I love the fact that all of the sudden, you want to talk about morality in our country," Carson said sarcastically, saying he welcomed a return of Judeo-Christian values.