Carson urges prayer after Trump rant

A day after Donald Trump launched into a 95-minute rant in Fort Dodge and likened his nearest rival for the Republican presidential nomination to a child molester, Ben Carson's campaign Friday urged people to pray for Trump.

A video of the billionaire's speech reverberated Friday throughout social media, with supporters and detractors debating online whether Trump had gone too far this time - with his wondering aloud about the gullibility of Iowa voters and using an expletive to describe how he'd bomb Islamic State terrorists.

'When I spoke with Dr. Carson about this yesterday, how we should respond, you know he was so sad about it. He said: ‘Pray for him.' He feels sorry for him because he really likes Mr. Trump,” said Armstrong Williams, who often acts as Carson's surrogate in the media.

'To see him just imploding before our very eyes - it's just sad to watch,” Williams told CNN.

Speaking Thursday evening at a Fort Dodge rally, Trump cast doubt on Carson's oft-reported story of lunging at someone with a hunting knife as a child, an episode Carson says led him to his Christian faith.

A retired neurosurgeon, Carson has emerged as the main challenger to Trump's top position in national polls and popularity in early deciding states like Iowa.

'Give me a break,” Trump said in his Thursday speech, where he also lashed out at other Republican candidates and Democrat Hillary Clinton.

'How stupid are the people of Iowa? How stupid are the people of the country to believe that crap?”

Trump asserted the supposed tabbing incident showed Carson has a 'pathological” temper.

'If you're pathological, there's no cure for that,” Trump told supporters. 'If you're a child molester, there's no cure. They can't stop you.”

Other Republican candidates came to Carson's defense.

'Anyone can turn a multi-million dollar inheritance into more money, but all the money in the world won't make you as smart as Ben Carson,” candidate Carly Fiorina wrote on Facebook.

Republican candidate Lindsey Graham called Carson a 'good, decent man,” and said of Trump: 'I think he melted down last night.”

With less than three months until Iowa's Feb. 1 caucuses. the GOP establishment is increasingly worried about either Trump or Carson winning, the Washington Post reported.

Party leaders and major donors are concerned, the newspaper reported, that the eventual nomination of either would clear the way for Clinton and increase chances of Democrats gaining control of the Senate.

'The rest of the field still is wishing on a star that Trump and Carson are going to self-destruct,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a former adviser to 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

But according to the five-day rolling Reuters/Ipsos presidential poll, Trump has leapt some 17 percentage points among likely Republican voters since Nov. 6, when he was essentially tied with Carson at about 25 percent. Trump now captures 42 percent of those voters.

It remains to be seen, however, whether Trump's surge will hold in the wake of his comments at the Fort Dodge rally.

Trump remains ahead of Carson on social media sentiment, according to Thomson Reuters data.

However, on a daily basis, his score has plummeted over the past two days, from a positive 14.5 Wednesday to a negative 12.24 Thursday and a negative 12.22 Friday, the Thomson Reuters social media sentiment analysis tool showed.

The tool tracks and aggregates social media mentions of a candidate to derive a score based on the ratio of positive tweets against negative ones.

Reuters and the Washington Post contributed to this report.