our senior washington correspondent joe johns has more on the tale of two ben carsons. candidates can come reporter: ben carson s quiet dignified approach is a big part of his appeal but he says his calm demeanor was carved out of a violent past. as a teenager, i would go after people with rocks and bricks and baseball bats and hammers. reporter: carson wrote in his book about striking a schoolmate in the face with a combination lock, nearly punching his mother, smashing a kid s face with a rock. carson said he also tried to kill a friend identified as bob in a disagreement over the radio. he describes as temper as pathological. a disease that made him totally irrational. i had a large camping knife. i tried to stab him in the abdomen. fortunately, under his clothing, he had on a large metal belt buckle. the knife blade struck with such force that it broke. reporter: it was, he says, a
nowhere to be found. joey johns has more on the investigation. we re calling it a tale of two ben cars ben carsons. reporter: ben carson s quiet approach is a big part of his appeal. but he says his calm demeanor was carved out of a violent past. as a teenager, i would go out to people with rocks and bricks and baseball bats and hammers. carson wrote in his book about striking a schoolmate in the face with a combination lock, punching his mother, smashing a kid s face with a rock. he also tried to kill a friend in a disagreement over the radio. he describes his temper as pathological. a disease that made him totally irrational. i had a large camping knife and tried to stab him in the abdom abdomen. under his clothing, he had a large metal belt buckle and the knife blade struck with such force that it broke.
he said he would both take steps incrementally, but long term, that s where he would like to go on the law. what this tells us is no, there s nothing new about antipathy about roe v. wade. ben carson striking a note on that chord in iowa. no debates are new. what is new is the idea of multiple potential front-runners in the republican party having a no-exceptions pro-life policy. great seeing you. thanks. you bet. lots ahead. up next, is the jeb bush presidential campaign on life support? we ll tell you why there s some cause for concern. and later, joe biden speaking candidly about his decision to stay out of the presidential race. much more on this and what it means for the democratic race right here on msnbc.
morning. let s dive into this sohio. getting some controversy and mtv says look the show aims to challenge whiteness and help address racial bias. is this the start of a good conversation? i doubt it very seriously. i think there ought to be a conversation. i think most people have the conversation in the wrong way. if you are going to talk about race we have to start with what you know to be a fact this t. is a crude delinquent yart of people that doesn t have a biological basis at all. when we talk about white people in a generalized way what are we really saying we are not saying anything at all. all sorts of white people as there are all sorts of black people. to talk about any issues in a racial context generally just confuses things. discussing whiteness and figuring out what it means to be white. is mtv striking a cord here? i doubt it. i also think it s a good conversation to have. but everywhere else i have seen this particularly college campuses those kind of things. it
flew in help from canada. everything so far seems to be okay, but it is early. chris and kate? margaret, keep us updated. you look like you re getting hit yourself. thank you so very much. we ll continue to follow the weather, of course. another big story that broke overnight. a blockbuster media merger in the works. comcast striking a $45 billion deal buy time warner cable. it would combine the two biggest cable companies in the united states. chief business correspondent christine romans is here to break it down for us. what more are we learning about this merger? it s a very big, big merger. it s interesting, a combined comcast/time warner essentially providing television channels, internet connections in roughly one in three homes in america. most in new york, l.a., philly and washington, d.c. customers may like comcast s next generation software and set-top boxes but not the cable bill. often seeing less competition means higher prices. when it comes to cable bills,