I don’t think it would be harmful if they apologized to him and he apologized to them, but I don’t see that happening. ... Well, for one thing, if you accuse someone of something that’s not true, it usually is a reasonable thing to acknowledge that. ... Rather than make this a one-sided issue, why don’t we all just, say, back off a little bit, we have such important issues to deal with, and you know, let’s just call a truce. And the best way to call a truce is simply to say, ‘I’m over that. You’re over that. I’m sorry I said this if it offended you.

— Ben Carson on Khizr and Ghazala Khan

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I don’t think it would be harmful if they apologized to him and he apologized to them, but I don’t see that happening. ... Well, for one thing, if you accuse someone of something that’s not true, it usually is a reasonable thing to acknowledge that. ... Rather than make this a one-sided issue, why don’t we all just, say, back off a little bit, we have such important issues to deal with, and you know, let’s just call a truce. And the best way to call a truce is simply to say, ‘I’m over that. You’re over that. I’m sorry I said this if it offended you." in the context of "Ben Carson, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ben-carson-khan-family-apologize-trump/story?id=41099080 (August 3, 2016)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Khizr and Ghazala Khan" (Quotes about the Khan family) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ben Carson

About Ben Carson

Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson, Sr. (born September 18, 1951) is an American retired neurosurgeon, author, and politician who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. He was a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 Republican primaries. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, by President George W. Bush in 2008.