[Baltimore Sun] What will Trump do in his second term? A Q&A with Dr. Ben Carson
Read Time:13 Minute, 3 Second
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares for a second term, one of his former Cabinet secretaries provides insight on what to expect next year.
Dr. Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon who previously lived in the Baltimore area and served as the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He was on a list of potential vice-presidential picks for Trump and is a “favorite” to be nominated as Trump’s Secretary for Health and Human Services, according to DailyMail.com.
Sun co-owner Armstrong Williams interviewed Carson about how Trump’s second term may be different from the first.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: You are obviously a very close friend and confidant of the president-elect. You spent four years in his cabinet. You’ve seen him come back from the darkness and into the light, and now he’s president again. How will this Donald Trump, Dr. Carson, differ from the Donald Trump of the past?
A: Well, this Donald Trump has a lot more experience, firsthand knowledge of how Washington works and what kind of people are trustworthy and what kind of people should be looked at … and I think that will make a very big difference. He also has established a lot of allies in different places who I think will be very helpful to him. He knows who his friends are and he knows who are not his friends, and I think that will make a huge difference.
Q: When you talk to the former president, what is it that you take from the recent landslide mandate across the board? Not just his base, but he expanded his base with Latinos, with women, with Black men, with Arabs, people who are working class. What do you think the American people are telling President-elect Trump? What would they like him to do?
A: They like the idea of common sense. I was in Europe last year, and I was talking to a bunch of the Europeans, and I said, what do you think of America? And they said, “We think you’ve lost your mind.” Well, there’s a good reason for people to think that — men in women’s sports, all this transgender stuff, letting criminals out, letting people go into stores and just take $900 worth of stuff without any criminal activity being attached to it. There are so many things. Also, on the international front, the world’s sort of coming apart and people are just saying, ‘Could we just have a little bit of order in our lives?’ Again, that’s all they want.
Q: President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear in his own words that he’s going to allow former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to sort of do whatever he wants in some areas of public health. It has many public health officials very concerned of the possibility that this member of the Kennedy Dynasty could have a very heavy hand when it comes to this issue. What is it that Robert Kennedy is trying to say, and what would the president want to do in this area?
A: Well, he wants to emphasize the importance of preventive care. There are a lot of things that are going on in our society that don’t need to be going on, particularly the obesity epidemic and all the things that are domino effects from that. And he just wants us to look at how we can eat healthier, how we can live healthier, integrating exercise into our routines, a whole host of things that we’ve always known were helpful but didn’t have the will to pursue. And obviously those things would be done on a voluntary basis and people would be allowed to observe the difference between those who live in a way that’s healthy and those who do not.
Q: What do you expect the president to do now that he has a Republican Congress, a Republican Senate and the American people fully behind him? What do you recommend that he does to start healing the wounds that the media has led us to believe that America is divided? But if you look at the way Americans vote, it doesn’t necessarily measure up that America is as divided as we’re told we are.
A: That’s correct. Well, he’s a very nice person when he is not being attacked, but when is that? And, hopefully, the media will slow down on their attacks since he’s not going to be able to run again. Maybe they won’t have as much to gain in trying to attack him and might even want to work with him a little bit, recognizing that we as a nation have much more in common with each other than the things that separate us. We’re not each other’s enemies. And I think that’s a message that he will carry forth because he’s not going to run again, so he doesn’t really need that platform. And I think he’ll be able to concentrate much more on the things at hand.
Q: Now, we’ve talked about what the media and others should do to help in the healing, but what is it that the president-elect himself can do?
A: Well, he can put a lot of faith in the God who saved him twice from assassination and all kinds of things that others were trying to do to him, ruin him financially, put him in jail, just make his life miserable. He can sort of put those things behind him. At some point, someone has to be the adult in the room. It can’t continue to be tit for tat, or we’ll never make any progress.
Q: Don’t you think President Biden has extended the olive branch by inviting President-elect Trump to the White House on Wednesday? And Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Harris and Hillary Rodham Clinton have all said — and even former President Barack Obama — even though it’s not the outcome that we wanted, Donald Trump is our president. Let’s rally behind him. Let those who supported us and are disappointed and saddened by the results rally behind our president because we’re not loyal to one person. We’re loyal to our constitution. Doesn’t that give the former president and yourself encouragement that maybe America can find a place to find common ground?
A: I would much rather they say that than not say it, but I’ll be much more impressed when I see what the actions are.
Q: Explain. Do you think these are just words and the actions could be something totally different? This is what they have to say to give this appearance to the public? This is who they are? Are you saying you don’t trust what their long-term game is?
A: Well, let’s put it this way. You tend to base what people’s futures are on their past. What have they done in the past? And if they’ve made a change, you’d like to see it. And that’s what I’m saying. I want to see the change. I don’t want to just hear about it.
Q: But isn’t it in your faith that it’s all about redemption and that we all can find our better angels, and no matter what we may have been in the past that sometimes we can have an epiphany, and it becomes crystal clear that this chaos is not good for the future of America?
A: But there’s no question that we, the American people, are not each other’s enemies. And you can take the most radical left-wing person, the most radical right-wing person, and they’re going to agree on 80% of stuff. But we let other agencies take that 20% and just stir the pot until we think that we’re each other’s enemies. And we have to be smart enough to realize that there are forces of Marxism and other things that thrive on dividing the population against each other.
Q: How do you interpret the current identity of the GOP, and do you feel the party is evolving to meet new cultural and social challenges?
A: Well, it’s interesting because it used to be that people perceived the Republicans as the party of the rich, the party of the elite, the party of Wall Street. And now that seems to be the Democrats. And when Donald Trump does these rallies, you see the common people out there, the workers, and the whole thing is kind of flipped upside down. And I’ll say from my own experience, I grew up as a Democrat and the Democratic Party today is very different than the one that I grew up with. But I really think we need to get away from party identification and ask ourselves, do we believe in the American system? Do we believe in capitalism? Do we believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that our rights come from our creator, or are we something else? Are we going to fundamentally change into another type of society? It’s much more about that than it’s about Democrats and Republicans.
Q: During your tenure at HUD, you focused on housing and economic initiatives. What key policy areas or reform would you like to see this administration pursue? I know you especially care so much about underserved communities.
A: I think one of the most important things we could do is remove the penalties for people who are receiving housing assistance. For instance, if you’re getting a housing subsidy and you get a raise on your job, you must report that immediately so that your rent can go up. Well, that’s not a great incentive for improving yourself. Or if you bring someone else under the roof who has an income, your rent goes up. And those are not things that are conducive to family togetherness. So these are things that I think could make a big difference if we work at enhancing the programs that encourage self-sufficiency.
Q: So many Americans feel so disillusioned with government institutions. The reason why so many Americans don’t go out and vote is because the promises that were made did nothing to enhance their lives. In fact, they would say their situation has gotten worse. What role do you see this government and this administration, yourself included, in helping to restore that trust in government?
A: One of my goals is WANE. We Are Not Enemies is helping people to understand we’ve allowed hatred and division to wax. Now it’s time to let it wane, and that can only benefit us as a nation. There’s nothing to be gained by us fighting each other and trying to destroy each other.
Q: I’m going to go back to the elections. You probably were a little surprised at how resounding the defeat was for the Democrats, their ideology, their wokeness and their progressiveness. Democrats are trying to gather over the shock to learn lessons from what the voters were telling them. If you were in the room with them, what would you tell them that they need to do differently?
A: I would say you need to look in the mirror and see who you are, what you’re advocating and what you’re supporting, and ask yourself: Am I really for that, or am I just going along with the crowd? Because you have to realize this is America. This is a nation that has a Judeo-Christian foundation. When you do things that destroy the traditional nuclear family … those are things that are destructive to a society, and people are simply tired of it. They don’t want it anymore. They don’t want to stop people who want to do something alternatively, but they don’t want the whole society to change because of the habits of a few people.
Q: Do you see a genuine shift in the GOP toward a more populous approach, or is this more of a temporary adjustment to the current political wins?
A: I think it’s going to depend on what gets done. If Donald Trump is able to do the things that he has promised to do successfully, I think it will result in a significant cultural change. If he’s not, we’re going to go back to fighting each other again.
Q: Do you think they should move to abolish the Department of Education?
A: Well, they certainly should provide more autonomy. I think for the states and for local governments when it comes to education, they need to promote school choice. That’s going to be the thing that makes the difference. If people have the option of sending their child to a school that’s going to teach them — where they’re going to achieve versus one that’s going to make them woke — I think that’s fair. Give them a choice and see where they go.
Q: Dr. Carson, if asked by your friend and a former president to return to a Cabinet advisory role, would you at this stage accept and return to government?
A: Well, I’m definitely going to be helping in some capacity, and it’s being worked out to see exactly what capacity that is, but my goal is to help our nation to be fair, equal and just to everybody. And let us be happy with each other again and not continue down this road of hatred and division.
Q: Could you briefly discuss what you are involved in now that helps you carry out those goals and make America a better place, especially for our younger generations?
A: Well, thanks for asking that question. I’m heading up the American Cornerstone Institute, which focuses on the cornerstone principles that made us into a great nation — that would be faith, liberty, community and life. And we also have a Little Patriots program, which focuses on the children and teaching them what our values are and what our history is — all of our history, the good, the bad and the ugly. But there’s a lot more good than there is bad and ugly. We just need to help them to appreciate the exceptional place that this country is and how they can get involved in making it even better. And we have many programs. They’re all free of charge at americancornerstone.org.
Q: And finally, Dr. Carson, as we say goodbye to you, what advice would you give for the state of the mainstream media?
A: I would say remember that the press is the only business protected by our Constitution, and the reason for that is because they’re supposed to disseminate unbiased information to the people so that the people could make a decision on how they wanted the country to be run. And when you put your thumb on the scale, or in the case of the way we are now, your foot on the scale, it distorts the information and it distorts the results. You can be a very righteous profession once again, highly admired, if you’ll be objective and treat the people as equals and not as your inferiors.
Armstrong Williams (awilliams@baltsun.com) is part owner of The Baltimore Sun.
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