candidate ben carson s two top aides campaign manager barry bennett and communications director doug watts both resigned effective immediately. and moments ago, deputy campaign manager lisa cohen also stepped down from that campaign. the changes come after a precipitous drop in the candidate s poll numbers, who led the gop field as recently as last month. our own hallie jackson spoke with former carson campaign manager barry bennett. reporter: you have the ben carson backdrop up but you re no longer with him. my last day. reporter: what s going on him. i congratulated, another record quarter raised $23 million, the meft of the republican candidates again, two quarters in a row. we ve got $1.1 million donations, the leader in social media throughout the platforms. but i frustration building with internal conflicts and i couldn t do it in any more. reporter: what internal
sandra: quick campaign alert. last few minutes we got word two of ben carson s top staffers have resigned. his campaign manager barry bennett and communications director doug watts both have quit. in a statement they tell fox news they respect the candidate and enjoyed helping him to get to top tier status. they also say they wish dr. carson the best of luck. so far no word from the candidate himself. we will bring any breaking news on this story to you as we get it. carrie fisher hitting back after criticism of her looks in star wars: the force awakens. the 59-year-old taking on internet patrols, judging her appearance in her reprice of the role of princess leia who she first played at age 19. tweeting, this week, please stop debating whether or not i aged well. unfortunately it hurts all three of my feelings. my body hasn t aged as well as i
carson, a gentleman by the name of doug watts. he sent this statement to me. let me read it. barry bennett and i have resigned from the carson campaign effective immediately. we respect the candidate and we have enjoyed helping him go from far back in the field to top tier status. having just announced raising $23 million for the fourth quarter, more than any other republican candidate, passing $1 million contributions and over 100,000 unique donors since march. we are proud of our efforts for dr. cars and we wish him and his campaign the best of luck. now, what that statement doesn t say, brianna, is why exactly the campaign manager and spokesperson left the campaign. ben carson, if you remember, said last week that he was looking at a shake-up. he felt like his campaign wasn t being managed properly. that spending they were spending too much, not getting enough return on that investment. when cnn talked with him about those reports, he said they were overhyped, oversensationalized.
someone did tell me he said that earlier today. i guess it s not common that maybe it violates my job description as a spokesperson to be speechless. i think in this case i am. joining me now is cnn political correspondent. let s get to it. we heard ben carson saying earlier today, yes, i have this intel source and would provide my sourcing. apparently he said his intelligence is better than the white house s and better than president obama s. he s released the documents. what do they say? he has released the documents. i have them here in my hand. it s 15 pages. some of which includes a newspaper clipping. essentially, i think the takeaway comes from a statement from doug watts, who is ben carson s communication director. he says china has had a long
anything. this is about gotcha questions. we heard that last night in the debate. so i spoke just a few minutes ago with doug watts, the communications director for ben carson. he says they have already been in direct contact with both donald trump and carly fiorina s campaigns but their objective is to get all the campaigns or as they put it, everyone who was on that stage, together and come up with new ideas about questions, about moderators, about length of statement, even about commercials so they are looking at a completely different way to do these debates and to have more control over them. now, you will remember that for the cnbc debate last night, donald trump and ben carson came together and they got them to change the format, opening statements, they got them to change the length of the debate. they are even looking at changing potentially the number of debates. so all of that, they consider to be on the table and the clock is kind of ticking because the next debate is less