In his autobiography, Gifted Hands, neurosurgeon Ben Carson referred to what he called the “pathological temper” he had as a young man. Donald Trump referred to Carson’s “pathological temper” when the two of them were running for the 2016 GOP nomination for president. “It’s in the book that he’s got a pathological temper,” Trump told CNN. “That’s a big problem because you don’t cure that … as an example: child molesting. You don’t cure these people. You don’t cure a child molester. There’s no cure for it. Pathological, there’s no cure for that.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/12/politics/donald-trump-ben-carson-child-molester/index.html
Pathological. Like pathological liar. There’s no cure for that.
Trump won the nomination and wanted to find a position for the neurosurgeon in his administration. Maybe secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services? Maybe surgeon general?
No.
That would make far too much sense for the pathologically lying, pathologically corrupt, and pathologically narcissistic Trump.
Trump wanted Carson to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development with a nearly $50 billion budget that oversees the housing needs of the country’s lowest-income households and enforces fair housing laws. Armstrong Williams, Carson’s friend and spokesman, said, “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience. He’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”
So, of course, when Trump asked Carson to be HUD secretary, Carson said yes.
Armstrong Williams told reporters that Carson’s primary qualification for the job was that he had once lived in government housing.
That’s a little like someone accepting the position of defense secretary because they had once watched the movie Stripes.
Only it was not like that because, Williams admitted, Carson had never lived in government housing.
This meant that Carson had no qualifications for the cabinet position. He knew nothing about urban housing needs when he became the HUD secretary. After three years on the job, he apparently knew no more than he did on his first day.
This was obvious in an exchange with Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat of California, during a hearing on May 21, 2019, where Porter asked Carson about real estate owned properties – or REOs, which are properties that are owned by a lender that fail to sell at foreclosure auctions.
Porter said to Carson: “I’d also like you to get back to me if you don’t mind to explain the disparity in REO rates. Do you know what an REO is?”
Carson replied, “An Oreo?”
“No, not an Oreo,” Porter said. “An R-E-O. REO.”
Carson responded, “Real estate …” before pausing.
Porter asked, “what’s the O stand for?,” to which Carson answered: “Organization.”
Porter replied, “Owned, real estate owned. That’s what happens when a property goes to foreclosure, we call it an R-E-O.”
Porter later tweeted: “I asked Sec. Carson about REOs – a basic term related to foreclosure – at a hearing today. He thought I was referring to a chocolate sandwich cookie. No, really.”
Carson, as did so many other Trump administration officials, sought to weaken regulations in the department he was given the authority to protect by watering down federal fair housing laws.
The Trump administration cut its budget for HUD and Carson did little (or nothing) as the department’s secretary, but this did not keep him from being investigated for violating federal laws that require Congressional approval for spending on redecoration costs higher than $5,000.
In February 2018, the New York Times reported that the HUD officials spent $31,000 on a new dining room set for Secretary Ben Carson’s office in late 2017 — just as the White House announced plans to cut HUD’s programs for the homeless, elderly, and poor.
“In general,” Carson’s spokesman responded, “the secretary does want to be as fiscally prudent as possible with the taxpayers’ money.” But, the spokesman added, Mr. Carson “didn’t know the table had been purchased,” but does not believe the cost was too steep and does not intend to return it.
