The Texan Podcast - Interview: Ben Carson on Texas School Choice, DEI Policies, 2024 Presidential Race

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Former presidential candidate and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson joined The Texan’s senior editor McKenzie DiLullo to discuss his support of the Texas Legislature’s efforts to curb the ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies in higher education.Carson expressed his views about the state of public education across the nation in general, and the fight over school choice in Texas specifically.“Given the fact that Texans tend to be logical people, I suspect the chances of it passing are pretty strong, quite frankly,” said Carson. “It’s so important that we have competition because that’s the way we obliterate mediocrity in schools.”Carson also weighed in about the 2024 presidential race and whether he will run again or has any plans to endorse a candidate.Be sure to subscribe to The Texan to stay up to date on the latest news in Texas politics: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/

Howdy, folks. Mackenzie DeLulo here on a special edition of the Texans podcast. This week, we are joined by former presidential candidate and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, who is in town testifying on some legislation before the Texas Senate. We chatted about his planned testimony, his position on school choice in the fight here in Texas, the state of public education at large, and whether or not he'll be endorsing in the 2024 presidential election. Thanks for listening and enjoy this episode. Howdy folks, Mackenzie DeLulo here with The Texan on another Voices of Texan podcast episode. We are joined today by former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

and former presidential candidate Ben Carson. Dr. Carson, we are so grateful to have you here today. Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here with you. Wonderful. Well, you are here in town today to join the business of the Texas Senate. You're here to testify on Senate Bill 17 by Senator Brandon Creighton. We'd love for you to give us a little bit of a preview of your testimony. We know you're about to head back over to the Capitol and give your testimony on that bill. If you wouldn't mind just giving us a preview of your testimony and why you're here in Texas. Well, interestingly enough, in our society today, people like to couch all kinds of motives with beautiful words. So when you say diversity, equity, inclusion, it sounds beautiful. But when in fact you end up using it as a bureaucratic

method of control and censorship and division, that is not a good thing. And so we want to make sure that people understand what is really going on here. We're not against diversity and inclusion. We're against manipulating people and causing division in our society and throwing out the very things that made us into a great nation. It was our entrepreneurship, our innovation that caused America to be the greatest source of life-changing inventions in the world. And it's not checking little boxes about differences. It's about the things that made us into a great nation. Now, you travel across the country advocating for these issues and this perspective. Is this something you're seeing?

You're here in Texas this week. Is this something that's specific to Texas, or are you seeing this across the country? No, this is something that is nationwide. And I speak nationwide. I'm all over the place. Last week, this time I was in Wisconsin. And then in Missouri.

These are issues that are life-changing and culture-changing issues. And we as Americans have to understand who we are, what our history is, how did we become great. You know, it was things like our faith, things like liberty, providing people the ability to do things the way that they want to do it without a bunch of mandates and people putting their foot on their throat. It was about a sense of community, people learning how to work together and to subjugate their little pet peeves to the greater good. And our founders used that term frequently, the greater good. It's about our respect for life, from the womb to the tomb, and the quality of life for our

fellow citizens. All of those are the kinds of things that are important. It's about our history, because your history gives you your identity. Your identity gives you your basis of your beliefs. And when you take your history and you distort it, you hide it, you destroy it, you basically lose your anchor. You become like a leaf blowing in the wind. That's why when ISIS goes in and conquers an area, the first thing they do is destroy the history.

They destroy the libraries. They destroy the museums. They don't want people to know who they are. That way they become malleable, very easy to manipulate. Losing a little bit of that root. Post your service in the administration, you've focused a lot of your emphasis on public education. What is your perspective on the state of public education in the U.S. and then also just here in Texas?

Well, unfortunately, it's not good. I feel that our society is being dumbed down. When you look at international surveys, you know, particularly in the STEM areas, we end up near the bottom. That's exactly where we don't need to be. There was an expose about a month ago about the Baltimore public school system. You might have seen they looked at 23 public schools looking for proficiency in math at great level. Out of the thousands of students that were examined,

there were zero that were proficient in math. And we have high schools, particularly in our inner cities, that are graduating people who are basically functionally illiterate. Well, what are they going to do? And then you see all the trafficking and drugs and crime and stuff going on. We're failing these individuals. As a result You know, we're failing these individuals. And as a result of that, we're failing our society. And we really have to get much more serious about that,

which is one of the reasons that at American Cornerstone we developed the Little Patriots program to teach our children who we are as Americans, what our values are, what our history is. The good, the bad, and the ugly, we don't hide anything. But an honest appraisal will show you that there's a heck of a lot more good than there is bad and ugly. And we have those critical race theory 1619 project

who just take the bad and the ugly and they concentrate on that and they multiply that and they say, that's who we are and we've caused everybody's problems. What a bunch of garbage. And what a horrible nation we are. If we were that horrible, why are all these people trying to get in here? And when they get here, wouldn't they call all their friends and relatives and say, don't come here. It's a horrible place. That's exactly what we're not saying. So that tells you that that is just a complete lie. You wrote an op-ed, which the title is, you know, it must speak so much to so many Texans here, but everything is bigger in Texas, including school choice. You've publicly praised Governor Abbott's approval of education savings accounts, ESAs. For the first time in many sessions,

school choice is enjoying a lot of legislative momentum. What is your perspective of school choice passing here in Texas this legislative session, and why do you think it would be important for Texans to support something along these lines? Well, given the fact that Texans tend to be logical people, I suspect the chances of it passing are pretty strong, quite frankly. It's so important that we have competition because that's the way we obliterate mediocrity in schools. And we certainly have the ability

to teach our children. Do we have the incentive to teach them? And the school choice will provide that kind of incentive. So I'm very much looking forward to being them. And the school choice will provide that kind of incentive. So I'm very much looking forward to being passed. And I know on a personal level how important it is, because I was a terrible student at one point, probably the worst student you've ever seen. And it was my changed attitude about education that completely turned my life around.

Particularly as I started doing a lot of reading. Reading made a huge difference in my life. And as I started reading about scientists and explorers and entrepreneurs and surgeons, I began to realize the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It's not somebody else. And I stopped listening to all the naysayers who were saying, you can't do this and you can't do this and nobody's done that. Forget about it.

I always tell young people nobody's ever done anything until somebody does it. So why don't you be the one? I know you've spoken at length about your mother and the influence she had on you and your brother's education growing up. Talk to our listeners a little bit about how she inspired y'all in your education journeys, and particularly in that she did not have an exhaustive education background herself. No, she did not. She came from a huge rural family in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

was bounced around from residence to residence, never had a stable home, had achieved less than a third grade education, got married at age 13 trying to escape that dire poverty. And my father was much, much older. And they moved to Detroit, and he was a factory worker and a part-time preacher. She discovered he was a bigamist, had another family. So obviously that resulted in a divorce, and there she was trying to raise two young sons by herself with less than a third-grade education. But she was one of those people who would never give up. Some relatives in Boston

took us in. Typical tenement, large multifamily dwelling, broken windows, doors, gangs, sirens, murders. Both my favorite cousins were killed. I mean, that was the environment. But she would leave the house at 5 in the morning, get back after midnight, job to job to job as a domestic. She didn't want to be on welfare. Eventually we were able to move back to Detroit. That's where I discovered the joy of reading after being a terrible student. In the course of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class and just had a complete revolution. And that changed the trajectory of my life. The same thing happened with my brother. And my mother used to get roundly criticized by all her friends. I'd say, you can't make boys stay in the house and read books.

They'll grow up and they'll hate you. And I would overhear them and I would say, you know, they're right, mother, but we still had to do it anyway. And I think she had the last laugh because one son became a brain surgeon and one became a rocket scientist. That's a decent resume right there as a mama, absolutely. Now, what would be your response to critics of school choice who say, yes, this may be something that benefits

more urban areas of a state like Texas, but could be detrimental to more rural communities where, you know, the public education system is what a lot of students and families rely on? Yeah, well, school choice doesn't mean that you have to take your kids out of the public school system. That's exactly what it means. Choice. You get to do what seems to work for you. So what works for you is what works for you. It doesn't matter whether you're in the middle of the city or the suburbs or the rural area.

Very well. Now, arguably the biggest news story of the last several weeks has been the indictment of former President Donald Trump. You served in his administration. What was your response to the news, and what do you think this means for his chances in 2024? Well, obviously, like many others, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous. We've become a banana republic. And, you know, it's embarrassing. You know, there was a time when we had a moral voice for the rest of the world in terms of how they treated people. We've lost that. It's going to take a long time to get it back if we ever do get it back again. And now it's causing people to actually focus on us and ask questions about why is it that you prosecute and persecute some people but not all people?

Why is it selectively done? Why is it done to try to cripple your opponents? I mean, that is just totally antithetical to who we are as Americans. So I'm very embarrassed, but worse than that, I'm very concerned about the future of our country because we started a precedent. And what's going to stop people from now, particularly as we ignore statutes of limitation, as was the case with this, why not go back and persecute all of your political opponents? Why not try to make their lives miserable? Why not try to eliminate them? That's the way it starts.

That's the way it has started in all totalitarian governments. And, you know, with American Cornerstone, we have a program called My American Story, in which we interview people who came from socialist and communist countries. And they, you know, tell us how they escaped and how they became successful in this country, but they also tell us that they're extremely worried because they see the same thing happening in this country that happened in their countries. Now, in terms of 2024, you have said that it is not your desire to run again. Does that remain true? Well, I will always do what the Lord wants me to do,

but I hope that's not it. There you go. It's not your desire. Now, we have a small field of candidates who have thrown their hat in the ring, and that includes former President Donald Trump, whose administration you served under, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. In terms of who you might support in 2024, one, do you plan to endorse? And two, have you thought about who you might want to endorse? Well, obviously, that'll be between me and whoever I endorse. And the timing will be appropriate. But what I encourage people to do is let the primary process work. Listen carefully to everybody's policies. You know know kind of shut out all the

chatter all the noise because you know the presidency is about leadership when you have good leadership good things happen you know a lot of our economists they like to say there's a natural cycle to the economy it cycles up and it cycles down but a bunch of garbage. What happens is sometimes you have people in office who know what they're doing and other times you don't. That's what makes it go up and down. And, you know, it's important for people to understand that

and to actually study what's going on, to understand economics, to understand consequences, to understand consequences, to understand, for instance, if you diminish our ability to use fossil fuels, you empower Vladimir Putin. And if you empower Vladimir Putin, then he's more likely to attack Ukraine. I mean, all of these things have reasons. They don't just spontaneously occur. And, you know, we have to learn how to be a little smarter in the way we do things. We have to realize that if we don't control our borders, there are countries

like Iran who want to destroy us. Why wouldn't they send their operatives to the poorest southern border, target the 13 or so critical substations, and knock out our electric grid? You know, there are a lot of things that happen to people because they're stupid. And we've got to do better. In terms of the biggest issues for 2024, from where you're sitting, and you spoke about a few just now, what would be the biggest political issues that 2024 contenders will have to face in their campaigns? Well, I think the thing that people need to be looking out for is leadership that can bring people together. You know, our nation is too strong to be brought down militarily by China or Russia or Iran or North Korea, but we can be destroyed from inside. A house divided against

itself cannot stand. Jesus said it first. Abraham Lincoln repeated it. It is absolutely true. And that's exactly what's happening to our house in the United States. People are trying to divide us on the basis of race, income, age, religion, political affiliation, gender, you name it, driving wedges, making people think that they're each other's enemies that will destroy us if we don't wake up. Would you, if a Republican were to make it back into the White House, and you've even said you'd be willing to support somebody if they were a Democrat, but supported the principles that you stand for and that you agree with, but if a Republican that you agreed with were to make it back into the White House,

what is the probability that you might be willing to serve in another administration? We'll wait and see how that turns out. We'll wait and see. Absolutely. So you've mentioned the American Cornerstone Institute a few times. I would love for you to give our listeners a little bit of background on your institute and what kind of work you're doing. Well, you know, I was intending to retire after the 2020 election. But quickly seeing the direction of the country, I figured I could not really enjoy my life playing golf and settling around the world, watching my country go down the tubes. So some very talented individuals who had worked with me at HUD and I got together and created the American Cornerstone Institute, which looks at those cornerstone principles

that helped us to go from a bunch of ragtag militiamen to the pinnacle of the world record time. It was not a coincidence. It was those principles, those being our faith, which taught us how to deal with each other, how to love your neighbor, our love of liberty and our celebration of freedom, freedom of choice, as opposed to a government system that tells you what to do and controls your life. Our community, you know, our country consisted of a bunch of small communities,

20 families, 50, 100 families, no other community within 50 or 100 miles. Not only did they survive, but they thrived. In many cases, they didn't even speak the same language. Some of them were from Germany, some of them were from Ireland. I mean, it didn't matter. They learned how to subjugate their little personal things to the greater good of the community. And that was a huge bonus for us as a nation.

And then life, respecting life from the womb to the tomb, caring for those who couldn't care for themselves. Those were things that characterized our nation. And, you know, when we had that sense of unity and purpose, it would be very difficult to defeat us in any way. And that's why we need to get back to that. And of course, that's why we have the Little Patriots program. That's why we have the executive branch program to teach people the ins and outs of our government. And we're trying to fight the lack of knowledge because that makes people very vulnerable

when they don't know what's going on, particularly to unscrupulous politicians who will take tremendous advantage and tell you stuff and you'll say, oh, okay, that's what they said, okay, rather than being able to analyze the situation for yourself. You know, it was John Adams, our second president, who said that our system is based on an educated and informed populace. So we have to get back to that, and that's a big part of the purpose of American Cornerstone. Well, thank you, Secretary

Carson, Dr. Carson. We know you have to head back over to the Senate and do the work of the people over in the Senate. So we're appreciative of you making a pit stop by the Texan on your way over there. And thank you so much for joining us on our podcast. A pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics and send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting an email to editor at thetexan.news. We are funded entirely by readers and listeners like you.

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