Did Ben Carson Just Spill the Beans on Donald Trump's Possible Vice Presidential Picks?

Impact

It's not totally mind-boggling that a man who made his mark examining the workings of the human brain has some interesting thought processes.

Ben Carson, the onetime presidential candidate who has now hitched his political star to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, spilled the beans on Trump's short list for a vice presidential running mate during a recent interview — or did he?

Read more: Who Will Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Pick as Their VPs? A Look at All the Candidates

The Washington Post reported Sunday, having asked Carson about potential Trump running mates: "The most favorably regarded contenders after himself, he was told, were John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie."

"Those are all people on our list," Carson told the paper.

Lynne Sladky/AP

Carson's casual confirmation of the names set off a cascade of followup reports.

The Post later updated the story to say Carson then did some backpedaling: "Everybody could potentially be considered, doesn't mean they are on the short list."

The doctor was a little more circumspect about the names during a Fox News appearance:

Trump himself — who asked Carson to help mull running mates before putting campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in charge of VP operations — also tamped Carson's Post interview down on Twitter.

Carson, the preternaturally calm pediatric neurosurgeon who enjoyed a burst of popularity early in the frantic GOP primary cycle, seems to enjoy making political pronouncements on car rides.

He once told the New York Daily News during a drive from midtown Manhattan to Ground Zero that he had unique ideas for extracting information from terror suspects.

"I can think of some things that would be much more effective than [waterboarding], that would not be torture, that would take advantage of things that we know about the brain," Carson told a reporter during the trip.

Asked by the News to elaborate on those techniques, Carson demurred — Trump style.

"I'm not going to tell," he said. "I wouldn't put those things out for everybody to know."