Carson says he 'would love to see' nationwide abortion ban but now it's up to states

Dr. Ben Carson served as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Donald Trump’s administration, and he is one of only a handful of cabinet members still in the former president’s orbit. Geoff Bennett spoke with Carson ahead of his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Read the Full Transcript

Geoff Bennett: Dr. Ben Carson served as the secretary of housing and urging urban development in Donald Trump’s administration. And he is one of only a handful of Cabinet members still in the former president’s orbit. Carson is slated to speak this evening.

And I caught up with him earlier today.

Dr. Ben Carson, thanks so much for joining us.

Dr. Ben Carson, Former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett: You are among a handful of the dozens of people who served in Trump’s Cabinet during his time in office who say that he deserves to be reelected

Former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, former National Security Advisers John Bolton, H.R. McMaster, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Attorney General Bill Barr all say that Donald Trump is not fit to serve.

Why, in your view, are all of those men wrong?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, I think they’re looking more at the person and at the personality, and not so much at what he was able to accomplish.

I would say it’s akin to if you were a patient with a terrible disease and you required a good surgeon. Would you rather have the one who has terrible bedside manner and saves everybody or the one with the sweetest words who kills everybody?

Geoff Bennett: Well, what’s your assessment of Donald Trump as a person and his personality?

Dr. Ben Carson: His personality is similar to what you would see in a Manhattan businessman, somebody who lives in a dog-eat-dog world where you take no prisoners. And that’s how you rise to the top in that kind of environment.

Geoff Bennett: The Trump campaign says it’s making a major play for the Black vote. They say that they are microtargeting urban Black men between the ages of 18 and 34.

Help us understand what that effort looks like.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, I don’t know that there is a gigantic effort, other than having policies that recognize that a rising tide lifts all boats.

And that has been clear in the policies that he’s put forth during his previous administration. And everybody has benefited from it. You had the lowest Black unemployment rates, the lowest Hispanic unemployment rates, very low female unemployment rates. Those kinds of things are noticed by people, and not going out of your way to sort of take one group and pit them against another group.

I think that’s what we need more of in America. And it doesn’t matter who does that, Democrat or Republican. We just need to move in that direction.

Geoff Bennett: Let’s talk about the issues, because, on the issue of abortion, Donald Trump is playing down the prospect of a nationwide abortion ban. He’s saying that at this point it should be left to the states.

You support a federal ban on abortion, and you say you don’t believe in exceptions for rape and incest. And J.D. Vance, the vice presidential pick now, has also argued in the past against exceptions for rape and incest.

Help us understand your reasoning for that.

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, I said that, obviously, before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Geoff Bennett: But you made that point in the book that came out this past spring.

Dr. Ben Carson: Now that it has been overturned, we abide by the law of the land.

The law of the land says that should be looked at the level of the state. And I think that’s actually not a bad idea, because, at the state level, you get to talk with your representatives. You get to make your opinion known. You get to hear from them and you get to help fashion what they propose.

And the way it was before, you didn’t get to do that. And I think that’s probably what the founding fathers had in mind when they talked about a nation that was of, by and for the people, not of, by and for the government.

Geoff Bennett: So are you saying you no longer support a nationwide abortion ban, and you don’t think that Donald Trump should embrace the same idea?

Dr. Ben Carson: I would love to see a nationwide ban on murdering little babies. I would love that.

But we need to use the mechanism that is supplied legally by our country and by the principles that establish our country. And I hope that we continue to move toward a society that honors life from the womb to the tomb.

Geoff Bennett: In the time that remains, I want to draw on your experience as the former secretary of housing and urban development.

The Biden administration released a set of proposals today aimed at tackling the housing affordability crisis. They’re trying to cap rents at a certain level.

If President Trump, former President Trump, is reelected, what would he aim to do to solve the housing affordability crisis?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, one of the things that he did the first time around was say, for every regulation, I want you to get rid of two.

At HUD, we got rid of over 2,000 regulations and subregulations. Those are the kinds of things that really help. You probably heard about the multifamily luxury dwelling that was made for the homeless in Los Angeles recently, $600,000 per unit.

The reason that it’s so expensive is not because the technology doesn’t exist to create affordable housing, but because the number of regulations that you stack on takes something that maybe costs $150,000 and drives it up to those kinds of ranges.

What we need to do is reevaluate some of the regulations. We have things that are duplicated and just not necessary. And if we do that, I think we can come up with a solution.

We were well on the way to a very good solution before COVID hit, working with Mayor Garcetti, with the governor, and with the various county clerks, coming up with a solution that used government land, curtailed some of the regulations, and dealt with the entire person, not just getting them off the street, but, if they’re a drug addict, dealing with that.

The head of the American Psychiatric Association told me that the vast majority of those people, with appropriate counseling and regular medications, could be quite functional. But we just throw them out on the street on their own, and that’s really not very compassionate.

Geoff Bennett: Dr. Ben Carson, thanks so much for sharing your time with us. We appreciate it.

Dr. Ben Carson: A pleasure. Thank you.