Ben Carson slashes campaign staff in shake-up after the Iowa caucuses

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is drastically cutting his campaign staff, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The Post's Robert Costa wrote that in total, "about half" of Carson's team would be released as the candidate's funds have dried up.

The development came after Carson placed fourth in Monday's Iowa caucuses with about 9.3% of the vote. But a Carson adviser told The Post that a campaign shake-up was in the works before the caucuses.

"Dr. Carson is going to get his campaign lean - really lean," the adviser, Armstrong Williams, told the newspaper. "One issue for a while has been too much infrastructure, and he has decided to fully address it so that he can sustain his campaign until the convention."

Senior Carson campaign staffers reportedly won't be affected by the cuts. A number of those senior aides assumed their positions after Carson's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, communications director, and others abruptly resigned on New Year's Eve.

Williams stressed that Carson was just as determined as ever to continue with his campaign after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won the Iowa caucuses using what Carson described as "dirty tricks."

On the night of the Iowa caucuses, Cruz's campaign distributed a CNN report on Carson's seemingly unusual plan to fly home to Florida early and rest instead of moving on directly to the next primary states.

As a result, some Cruz supporters and other political observers speculated that Carson was about to drop out. Carson issued a statement denying the rumors, and Cruz later apologized for his campaign not also distributing Carson's denial.

Carson's campaign accepted Cruz's apology in a Tuesday statement that also said Carson's candidacy was aimed at restoring character to the political system.

"This incident further demonstrates that we need an individual who is not a politician to lead and to heal our nation, not someone driven by ambition," the Carson statement said.

Business Insider reached out to the Carson campaign for comment, and we'll update this post if we hear back.