Death and Carnage will befall the US if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not elected president, says former GOP candidate Ben Carson, warning that a third-party candidate will do the country no good.
“America, right now, is like a cruise ship that is about to go off of Niagara Falls with tremendous carnage and death,” Carson told Fox News on Monday. “What you have to do first is recognize the problem, stop the ship, turn it around and then move in the other direction.”
The former neurosurgeon, which ended his own White House bid in March and endorsed Trump, rejected the idea of a third party candidate, saying that Gary Johnson, the US Libertarian Party candidate, and other potential third-party candidate entering the race would steal the spotlight away from Trump because of “petty little differences.”
Johnson, the former New Mexico Governor, won the Libertarian Party’s nomination for president at the party’s convention in Orlando, Florida on Sunday.
He attacked Trump at the convention, and described the real estate mogul's immigration policies as "just racist", particularly his call to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the US.
He said such candidates would only give a boost to the campaign of likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“A quarter of a century ago, another Clinton was running for the White House and it was the entrance of a third-party candidate, Ross Perot, that made it possible for him to win,” Carson said. "Now, wouldn’t it be ironic if the same thing happened this time? Wouldn’t we be smart to learn from things that have happened in the past?”
Clinton’s presidency would “destroy” the future of American people, Carson argued, as she would “completely change the nature of this country” with her choices.
The Libertarian Party is the only third party with ballot access in 50 states, making Johnson the only alternative option to available to all voters who do not want to choose Trump and Clinton in this election.
Third-party candidates are deemed to have a real chance in the November election as according to a Data Targeting poll released earlier this month, 55 percent of American voters prefer a third option in the race.
This is while 65 percent of the respondents said they were willing to support any candidate but Trump and Clinton.