At the Turning Point Action Conference in Detroit, Michigan, former HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson discussed the 2024 election and his political outlook.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Dr. Carson, everybody. This is a... How you doing, everybody? Great to see you. This is
00:19a homecoming for Dr. Carson. Dr. Carson, you grew up not far from here. I grew up in Detroit.
00:32It's been my first several years here. And you know, Detroit gets a bad rap all the time
00:40about being a horrible place, but I can tell you for certain, there were a lot of people
00:45who thought the right way, who believed in America, who encouraged me to climb the ladder
00:51of opportunity, and that you could do anything that you could imagine. And they believed
00:56in the difference between right and wrong, and law and order. That was Detroit. But what
01:03has happened is that a lot of people who actually think the right way and have the right values
01:12aren't willing to stand up for them. And the fact of the matter is, you cannot be the
01:19land of the free if you're not the home of the brave.
01:27So Dr. Carson, I believe you are one of the most impressive and important Americans alive
01:37today. I truly believe that. You have saved countless lives personally, and you've also
01:47impacted millions of people through your testimony and through your public advocacy. I want to
01:53stay on Detroit for just a second. Your story from Detroit to being one of the top surgeons
02:01on the planet is a remarkable one, and it's one that is only possible in America. I believe
02:08that if every black American learned more about Dr. Carson than critical race theory,
02:14our country would be in a much better place.
02:23There was a time when individuals like myself who worked very hard, who believed in God,
02:34who believed in right and wrong, had values that made us into a great nation, were celebrated.
02:41But now there's a faction that denigrates those people, says that they're Uncle Toms
02:48and all kinds of things that they're called. They don't appreciate them because they're
02:54more interested in getting people to believe that they're victims. And teaching little
03:00white children that their ancestors are oppressors, and little black children and minorities that
03:06they're victims. Tell me, how is that supposed to make the country better? There's no way
03:13that that does anything except cause confusion. And remember this, the United States of America
03:26is the major obstacle to one world government and Marxism in our system. And that's why
03:39there's such an effort to overcome us, but they cannot overcome us militarily. We're
03:45much too strong. So the only way they can overcome us is interiorly. They work with
03:52the fabric of our country, they denigrate the families, they denigrate the communities,
03:58they denigrate our values, and they drive wedges between the people on the basis of
04:04race, age, income, gender, political affiliation, religion, you name it, driving wedges, getting
04:12us to hate each other, when the fact of the matter is, our strength came through our unity.
04:19There were times in the early parts of our country where we had communities that were
04:24separated from each other by 100 miles, only 25, 50, 100 families. They spoke different
04:31languages, but not only did they survive, they thrived. Why did they thrive? Because
04:37they understood the concept of the common good. That was something that you heard very
04:43frequently. You know, not what's good for this group versus that group, not that this
04:52group had a problem before, so now let's make this group have a problem, but what works
04:58for everybody? And that is the thing that is so attractive about Donald Trump. He recognized
05:04that a rising tide floats all boats. Don't try to separate people, let's work together.
05:16So Dr. Carson, right after this dialogue right here, you're actually going with the president
05:21to a black church down the street where he's visiting, before he comes and visits us, by
05:26the way. And Dr. Carson, looking at Republican politics for the last 30 or 40 years, it
05:36is hard to find examples where candidates are willing to go into the Bronx or downtown
05:41Detroit. What is your takeaway or your impression of President Trump's willingness to go into
05:47communities that don't always overwhelmingly vote Republican? Well, you know, President
05:52Trump is not your typical politician. He doesn't run around with his finger in the
05:57air saying which way the wind is blowing. You know, he's very different. The first time
06:09I met him, neither one of us were running for president. I was at Mar-a-Lago and I was
06:15talking to him and somebody came up to him and said, Rod Stewart is here, Rod Stewart
06:20is here. He says, I don't care if Ben Carson is here. And I'm talking to him. But, you
06:33know, I think people generally know that he cares, you know. I noticed that the workers
06:38at Mar-a-Lago, he knows their names, he talks to them, they love him. The same thing at
06:45Trump Towers, all the places he actually communicates with people. He's not just using
06:51people like typical politicians do. And that's why the people in the Bronx and all these
06:56places where they don't expect him to have any traction, they recognize what's going
07:01on. The other thing is, Americans are a lot smarter than the news media and the leftists
07:08think they are. They recognize that if we allow the leftists to succeed in using our
07:25justice system to prosecute and persecute their political opponent, if they're successful
07:33in doing that, we will not have the United States of America anymore. We will have the
07:39United States of Banana Republic. We will be the biggest banana republic in the world.
07:45We're already laughed at. How could a country like ours have a leader who can barely find
07:53his way off the stage? You know, this person has control of the nuclear codes, has control
08:01of the military, control of so many aspects of our lives, and the people around him know
08:07that he's incompetent, but they are more interested in power than they are in the well-being of
08:14our nation. And we have to change that.
08:23Dr. Clarkson, how do you recommend that this audience that is all about action, action,
08:27action, and their advocacy, respond when their friends or family or potential voters
08:33say, I'm not sure about voting for Donald Trump because he's a convicted felon?
08:39Well, you know, I see so many people who have one or another reason that they don't want
08:45to vote for Trump, and they say, I can't stand him. When you press them, yes, his policies
08:51were good for me, I have to admit that, but I can't vote for him. Well, what if you were
08:57a patient who had a serious disease that required a very competent surgeon? Would you rather
09:03have a surgeon who has poor bedside manner and saves everybody or great bedside manner
09:09and kills everybody?
09:21And, you know, the fathers of our country, they studied every single political system
09:34that ever existed in the history of the world, and one of the things that they discovered
09:40is that they, no matter how they start, they all move in the same direction. Growth, infiltration,
09:46domination. And we have in Donald Trump somebody who understands that concept and wants to
09:56give the power back to the people, because that was the stopgap measure that our founders
10:02built into our system, the people, and their ability to change when the government is inappropriate.
10:09We have that ability. But it means we have to vote appropriately. Everybody in here has
10:22a sphere of influence. Use that in an appropriate way. Teach people, don't just go into the
10:28booth or look at the voting sheet and vote for the name that looks familiar. You need
10:33to know who those people are. Most people say, I know that name. It could be Satan.
10:39No, you don't want that. We've got to do better than that. We've got to study who we're voting
10:43for. And we also have to get involved in the process. Volunteer to be a poll watcher. And
10:52if you're a poll watcher, don't listen to the people who say you can watch the poll,
10:56but you've got to do it from way over there where you can't see anything. We don't have
11:00to accept that. We don't have to accept it if they say the signatures don't have to match.
11:05We don't have to accept it if there are a hundred ballots from the same address and
11:09they say it's okay. It's not okay. We don't have to accept it if people don't have voter
11:14IDs. We don't have to accept any of these things. This is what happens.
11:19Dr. Carson, this election is unlike anything we've ever seen before. It is the first time
11:33since the 1892 election where we have two independent presidential terms to compare
11:39and contrast. In 1992, it was Grover Cleveland who beat Benjamin Harrison. Grover Cleveland
11:45served as president and then Benjamin Harrison became president. Then people were able to
11:50compare both presidencies and then they went back to Grover Cleveland. Donald Trump hopes
11:55to be the first president since Grover Cleveland and only one of two presidents in our history
12:00to serve two non-consecutive terms. Can you compare and contrast or tell the audience
12:07how you, how they should compare and contrast the four years of Trump and the four years
12:12of Joe Biden? Well, you should ask yourself, do you have more money to spend when you go
12:17to the store? Do you have more money to spend when you go to buy gas for your car? Think
12:25about that. Do you feel safer walking down the street? You know, are you concerned about
12:33what's going on at the border? You know, think about all these people who are coming into
12:38our country. You know, the eight people from Kazakhstan who were just found who had ISIS
12:44connections. Those are the ones that we know about. What about the ones that we don't know
12:49about? And if the terrorists aren't coming into our country and planning something terrible,
12:54then they're not very good terrorists. So, I mean, we have a lot to be concerned about,
13:00but we have an ace in the hole. God. We got God.
13:22If he was willing to spare Sodomy Damore for the sake of ten people, we got this. Okay,
13:29so we have to do our part. That's the part. We have to do our part. So, Dr. Carson, I'm
13:34so glad you brought that up. And this is an audience that loves the Lord and wants to
13:38honor God and honor the country. What do you have to say to the first part of the question
13:44I'll ask, to Christians who say, I think God is done with this country. I think that our
13:49worst days are ahead. How would you respond? I would respond to that by saying, God still
13:56loves the world that he gave his only begotten son.
14:03And second, please, Dr. Carson. So, just really quick. Here in Michigan, our data analysis
14:27at Turning Point Action shows us that there are hundreds of thousands and close to maybe
14:33even 500 to 750,000 Christians that don't vote and or they passively vote. Even worse
14:41than that, there are Christians that say, I don't know if I can vote for Donald Trump.
14:46How would you respond to both those Christians who don't vote or Christians that are uneasy
14:52about Donald Trump? I would say the reason that we have the freedom that we have now
14:58and the ability to live in peace is because there were people before us who were willing
15:06to stand up for what they believed in. Many of them, not just to vote, they gave their
15:13lives so that we could have freedom and peace in our country. And I would ask them the question,
15:25what are you willing to do for your children? Because what we do today will have a dramatic
15:31impact on the kind of life that they will have. The debts that they have to pay, the
15:37people that they have to deal with, the principles that they will value or not value depending
15:44on how we present them. We've got to remember, this is the United States of America. This
15:51is America. We have the can do spirit, not the what can you do for me spirit. That's
15:57what many listen to during the election as we have to play our cards.
16:06There are so many different forces at play here in this election. We need to have the
16:11grassroots turn out in record numbers and do the work, register new voters, find low
16:17propensity voters. You might say, what is a low propensity voter? A low propensity
16:21voter is your Uncle Frank who complains all the time that grocery prices are too high,
16:26that crime is going up, that the country is not what it used to be, but he doesn't
16:32vote. That is a low propensity voter. Raise your hand if you know somebody like that in
16:36your life. Every person raising your hand, you've got to go find that Uncle Frank, register
16:40him to vote and tell him it is their duty to go vote for Donald Trump or I never want
16:45to hear your complaining ever again.
16:48Dr. Carson, how do we best identify, register, find those low propensity voters? This election
16:57will be determined by whether or not we are able to translate the concern that the everyday
17:04American has for the direction of the country to ballots and votes.
17:09All we have to do is get people to open their eyes and look and see what's going on. Just
17:16like with Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland, it's the same situation. We're fortunate in
17:23the sense that we've had these two administrations juxtaposed right next to each other. You don't
17:29have to remember back 20 years or 30 years ago. You just have to remember three or four
17:34years ago to see what was going on and what's going on now. And we're going to continue
17:39down this downward spiral unless we change it. And like I said, our founders gave us
17:45the ability to change it, but we have to take advantage of that. That is really the key
17:51right now. It is all in our hands. We have to talk about it. Don't shy away from those
17:58conversations at the dinner table and in your neighborhoods. Go out there and proclaim
18:04the gospel of freedom in this country.
18:12Dr. Carson, I want to close with this. We at Turning Point USA, our educational arm,
18:18we've been partnering with you in American Cornerstone of bringing Dr. Carson to college
18:23campuses across the country. And he has been selling out auditoriums, by the way. He's
18:27doing a great job. What have you witnessed, seen, or maybe even learned from these college
18:37campus visits that might be helpful for our audience to hear?
18:40Well, I have been thrilled to see those young people because they recognize that the pathway
18:47that we're on right now will preclude them realizing the American dream. They realize
18:54that we need to make a course correction. They are willing to do that. We all need
19:01to get behind them. We're talking about their future. There are some older people here like
19:07myself. We've realized the American dream. Everything has worked well for us. And we're
19:14going to sail into the night and nothing's going to happen. But 20 or 30 years from now,
19:21the things that we're putting in place right now will have a dramatic impact. I think a
19:26lot of those college kids understand that. And that's why they are moving. They're not
19:31listening to the lies anymore. You can only listen to lies for so long. And, you know,
19:37one of the things that happens before countries change to a Marxist regiment is they dumb
19:43down the population. Have you noticed that? When ex-Alexis Tocqueville came here in 1831
19:50to study our nation, he was blown away by the fact that he could find a mountain man
19:56in the middle of the forest and a guy could read. The guy could tell him about the Declaration
20:01of Independence. What do we have now? You see those men on the street interviews and
20:06they ask them, you know, who won the Revolutionary War? They don't even know what you're talking
20:10about. They don't know who won any war. They don't know what countries are next to our
20:16country. They don't know anything. I mean, it must hurt to be so stupid. But the fact
20:22of the matter is you have to dumb down the population first in order to get people who
20:31already have a wonderful situation to accept something worse than what they have. And that's
20:38what they're doing. They're trying to dumb you down, trying to make you think that what
20:42we have is nasty, it's no good, and that you want something else. We don't want Marxism.
20:49We don't want the government taking care of us from cradle to grave. This is America.
20:53We want to take care of ourselves and we want to do it with our own principles.
20:58Dr. Carson, I know I speak for this audience. You are a role model for millions and an American
21:13icon and treasure. God bless you for your courage. Thank you so much, Dr. Carson.
21:28Thank you.