Dr. Ben Carson - Neuralink, God’s Hand in Neuroscience and Human Consciousness | SRS #183

[Music] Dr Ben Carson welcome to the show thank you I'm delighted to be here thanks for having me oh it's my pleasure I've been looking forward to this for a long time and uh I can't believe you're actually here this is really uh really surreal for me I've been watching and following what you're doing for a long time and and um I just I love everything you've got going on and everything you've done And and I think everything you stand for so we love what you do and the in depth shows that you do and

your service to the country as a Navy s well thank you thank you everybody starts with an introduction and uh so here we go Dr Ben Carson you're raised in poverty in a single parent home in Detroit Michigan you earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School specializing in neurosurgery at age 33 you became the youngest major division director in John Hopkins Hospital history is the head of pediatric neurosurgery he gained International recognition for your groundbreaking surgical Innovations notably for leading the first successful separation of conjoined conjoined twins you're the author of

numerous scientific articles and books including Gifted Hands the Ben Carson Story which was later turned into a television movie he received the presidential medal of freedom in 2008 the highest civilian honor in the United States you ran for president in 2016 and were later appointed by President Trump is Secretary of Housing and Urban Development HUD serving from 2017 to 2021 you are a husband to Candy Carson since 1975 50 years in July we spoke Downstairs congratulations thank you half a century the father of three sons and most importantly a Christian so I'm just gonna 50

years I mean that's amazing and so you know kind of to start it off I just what would you say the secret to a successful marriages I would say marrying the right person that's the secret to a successful marriage you know making sure that this is somebody that you really like that you really have fun With uh you know so many people they they get married on the basis of physical attraction or something of that nature and that wanes with time and all of a sudden you don't have anything in common and uh that's a

problem and interesting I literally just talked about that uh as well just a few days ago so it's uh great to have your affirmation on that and uh I 100% agree with That um so before we get to In The Weeds I want to do I want to do a full life story on you so I hope you're uh ready for the Long Haul here not a problem but um but I want to start off uh just a couple of things we have a patreon account there's it's a subscription account they've been with me since

the very beginning when I started this show in the Attic of my house and it was just me and my wife and um and then we moved To this studio the team grew and it's it's really all because of them and so we've built quite the community over there and uh one of the things that I offer them is they get to ask each and every guest a question so this is from Roy G it's a good question Dr car what actionable steps can be taken to address the hospital insurance and pharmaceutical system that has

made healthc care costs outrageously Expensive I'm not looking for a pie in the sky idea but rather a realistic solution that could actually be enacted within this Administration well as everybody knows cost of Medical Care is skyrocketing uh it's much greater in this country than it is anywhere else in the world and yet we don't have the best outcomes we don't have the best longevity so it makes you question the Efficiency of our system we spend $13,100 per capita per year in this country on Health Care uh conci age practices just to put that in

perspective cost generally 5 to $10,000 so wow it is really a problem what do you need for Good Health Care a patient a health care provider that's all you need Along Came the middleman to facilitate the relationship and now the middleman is the major entity controlling both of the other two that's Where all the that's where all the money is going so what we need to do is have a system that takes us back to the health care provider and the patient and we already actually have that it's called health savings accounts and um if

you have if you just modify that system a little bit it would be very effective and when I say modify allow for instance if a husband is having a procedure or something done And he short $500 his wife can give to him out of hers or his brother or his cousin or his uncle or his aunt and uh that way every family becomes their own insurance company interestingly enough and you also modify it so that when a person dies their health savings account can be given to one of their family members wow over the course

of a generation or two almost every family Would have an enormous amount of power and they would be able to control their their own uh medical care that way and also they're going to be very interested in Uncle Joe who's smoking three packs of cigarettes today they're going to be hiding their cigarettes that's a good point that's a good point that would save us an enormous amount of money and you know The obvious question is what about the people you know who who are not employed whose employer can't put money into their health savings account

what about them well where does the money come from that 13,100 comes from the government you just divert it and you wouldn't have to put as much into people's samees account and it rolls over from year to year so if you don't have any major thing done for several Years you got a heck of a lot of money and for many people it would be the first time they ever owned anything and uh they learn how to manage money they learn economics it would make the medical system very transparent it would have to be because

people would want to know how much something cost uh you're not going to keep uh using the system if you know is coming out of your health savings account and your doctor is not going to say let's Just do another CAT scan to see how things are unless he really wants one because it's coming out of your account you're not going to let him do that you're GNA why you want to do another scan and uh it's sort of like when you go to a hotel and you put your credit card down um and attendant

says you don't need that all your expenses are taken care of oh well let me see the in dining in room dining menu as opposed to where's the Nearest McDonald's has this been introduced anywhere uh no not really I've talked to uh to Bobby Kennedy about it he's very interested he was receptive he's very receptive wow that sounds they would completely change our system and uh it would cost us a heck of a lot less money and it would bring transparency to the system which would bring its own set of improvements Wow I hope that

happens I hope it does to uh you know particularly with all the pressure that we have on the system with illegals who have come in do you think there's a real possibility that that could get pushed through I think so depends on how logic now you know there would be people who are very much entrenched in this system who make a lot of money Out of this who would not be too happy about it including some of the insurance companies because they would see their source of enormous uh profits disappearing yeah I bet that would

be one hell of a fight it will be but it's a concept that people can understand pretty easily mhm doesn't sound complicated at all and it's not complicated we've made it complicated because the more complex we can make it The easier it is to deceive people and to continue scamming people wow well I can't think of a better response for that question um that just blew me away I can't wait to get this out already um so everybody on the show gets a gift I always like really hesitant to give this out to doctors But

oh dear what do we have here those are uh vigilance lead gummy bears so yeah made here in the USA they taste amazing well thank you probably be outlawed by the uh Maha movement here in a couple months so better get them while you can yeah you better get them while you can cuz uh yeah um who knows they might come raiding your house to confiscate them but uh let's dig in to your life story starting right at the very beginning where did you grow up Grew up in Detroit and uh I thought my early

life was kind of idic we live in one of those a GI home 700 Square ft very small about the size of my master bedroom now but uh for me it was ideal there was a little lawn and you know we had a a family my father my mother my brother and uh there was a school that was in walking distance and it all seemed okay until it fell Apart when I was 8 years old and my parents got divorced now I had noticed that my father wasn't around a lot but he was a factory

worker and a part-time preacher so you know he would hide behind the part-time Peacher part but it turned out he had another family he had another family he had another family and that's why he wasn't around a lot and that's what resulted in the divorce how big was the other family uh I don't I don't know I didn't know much about the other family still don't know much about them uh but that resulted in the divorce and what do you know about the other family they they're in Detroit um I know one of the women

in the other family has told people that she's my half sister I've never met her I don't know who she Is um but um that was devastating and we didn't have a place to live for a while uh but some relatives in Boston took us in um one of my mother's older sisters and her uh husband where did you live in the entrum uh any place where we could find shelter uh any relatives or friends of my Mothers but uh how long did that go on uh just a matter of weeks before we found before

we found shelter in Boston and um was your brother is your brother older or younger than you older two years older so single mom a 10-year-old and an 8-year-old just bouncing around Detroit trying to figure out trying to find shelter trying to find out where to be but uh what were you thinking at 8 years Old it's seeming more and more like we're about to hit an inflation cycle like we saw in the' 70s President Reagan once said said that inflation is as violent as a Mugger as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly

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Partners stand Behind the vision our nation's Founders had to enrich all of our lives through goods and services offered by like-minded companies but joining AAC isn't just about the benefits it's about belonging to a community that stands for Timeless American values regardless of your age you can enroll for a 5-year AAC membership for 47% off visit amac.us SRS today to take advantage of this special offer ax membership is made up of Americans who believe in faith Family and freedom we are over 2 million members strong and we're growing their mission is simple protect the interest

of all Freedom loving Americans and offer incredible member benefits from exclusive discounts on travel insurance and everyday services to supporting strong representation in Washington DC AAC is here to make a difference in your life and in our nation visit amac.us SRS today to join me and millions of Americans who believe in Backing their mission that's amac.us SRS join AMAC and become part of a movement that stands for you your family and your future everything was a an adventure that was 8 years old and I didn't really fully understand what was going on to be honest

with you I thought we were just uh you know having different adventures and Uh you know it was something going to Boston on the train and uh but it was a very different neighborhood uh multif family dwellings rats and roaches broken glass all over the place gangs murders both of my older cousins that we adored were killed uh that's the kind of place that it was and um you know somehow we made it through All of that my mother was working all the time because she didn't like the concept of being dependent on the government

and she worked as a domestic going from place to place um but her goal was to get us back to Detroit uh and be independent and after a couple of years uh she had saved enough to be able to do That and uh you know was still a multif family dwelling but and there was still rats and roaches and dilapidated housing but nevertheless she was independent we were independent at that time and the major story there is that both my brother and I were terrible students uh really we were at the bottom of the class

and kids made fun of of us all the Time and you know I didn't like it very much but I tried to act like it didn't bother me but it did bother me uh quite a bit but it bothered my mother more than it bothered me and she just didn't know what to do and uh she was convinced that we were going to have the same kind of life that she had know menial jobs and not realizing the American dream and she prayed for Wisdom and God gave it to her at least in her opinion

my brother and I didn't think it was wise at all cuz it was to turn off the TV and make us read books and um we were not happy at all in today's world we probably would have called social services onor but uh we had to read those books and the first book that I read was about a beaver it was called chip the dam builder and it was a great book I Enjoyed that book so much that I started reading other animal books I read every animal book in the in the Detroit Public Libraries

and then I started reading about plants and then I started reading about rocks because we live right by the railroad tracks you get so used to the trains coming by they make a lot of noise you don't even hear it anymore uh but they're all these rocks and I would collect the rocks in a box And bring them home and read about them and pretty soon I could identify vir in Iraq where it came from how it was formed still in the fifth grade still the dummy nobody knew about this project of mine and then

one day Mr Jake the fifth grade science teacher walked in he held up big black Shiny Rock he says can anybody tell me what this is well I never raised my hand I never answered questions so I waited for one of the Other students and nobody nobody raised their hand and I said wow this is my big chance and I raised my hand and Mr Jake was shocked and all my classmates were turned around Benny Carson's got his hand up oh this is going to be good and Mr Jake said Benny and I said Mr

Jake that's obsidian and there was silence in the room cuz nobody knew whether it was Right or wrong and they didn't know whether they should be impressed or whether they should be laughing and Mr Jake said that's right it is Obsidian and I said obsidian is formed after volcanic eruption and the lava flows down it hits the water do the super cooling process the elements coales the surface glazes so everybody was staring at me what in the world is going on here but I was the most amazed person it Dawned in me at that moment

I said you're no dummy at all the reason you knew the answer is because you've been reading the books I said aren't you tired of being called a dummy I said what if you read books about all your subjects from that point forward you never saw me without a book if I had five minutes I was reading a book I went from being called a dummy to being called a bookworm and within the space of a year and a Half I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class wow all

the students used to call me dummy were coming at me saying Benny Benny how do you work this problem and I would say sit at my feet youngster while I instruct you I was probably a little obnoxious but it really changed the trajectory of my uh life significantly but the other thing probably just as Importantly is I hated poverty you know some people hate rats some people hate snakes and bugs I hated poverty and you know it really stung acutely the teacher would sometimes say everybody bring a nickel tomorrow because we're going to have popcorn

balls and they were beautifully wrapped in these cellophane wrappings of different colors and they look so good and they only cost A nickel some kids actually would bring a dollar to the school and buy a whole bag of them but you know I never had a popcorn B cuz we never had an extra nickel that's how bad thing were but I just hated poverty until I started reading those books until I started reading about successful people surgeons scientists explorers and entrepreneurs Inventors and as I read their stories I began to realize that the person who

has the most to do what happens to you is you and the person who determines your future is you and then po poverty didn't bother me because I knew that it was only temporary and that I had the ability to change it how old were you when you came to this uh I would have been about 10 or 11 at that point you figured it out at 10 or 11 years old yep and I knew I wanted to be a doctor I've I've always been drawn toward medicine I used to love hearing the stories about

missionary doctors who travel all over the world at Great personal expense and danger to bring not only physical but mental and spiritual health to People and I I actually had determined when I was 8 years old that I was going to be a missionary doctor even when I was a terrible student I I was going to be a missionary doctor and um that was really my dream until I was 13 at age 13 having grown up in dire poverty I decided I'd rather be rich so miss AR doctor was out and psychiatrist was In because

uh you know on TV psychiatrist seem like rich people they lived in the mansions and drove Jaguars and had these big plush offices and all they had to do is talk to crazy people all day and it seemed like I was doing that anyway so I said wow this is going to work out really well my brother knew about my interest in becoming psychiatrist and he had a job and he bought me a Subscription to Psychology today and I started reading it and I became the local shrink in high school everybody would bring me their

problems I would sit them down and stroke my chin say tell me about your mama and uh I was all gungho I majored in Psychology at Yale had interesting professors like Anna Freud who was the daughter of Sigman Freud psychoanalysis I was really heading down That pathway and by the time I got to medical school I was convinced I was going to be a psychiatrist the rest of medicine really didn't interest me it certainly surgery was not even on my radar at all hold on let's go back a little bit so you go right into

Yale went went went into Yale from Southwestern High School in inner city Detroit that was a major culture shock I must say Um it was actually the first year that y admitted women so there were a lot of changes going on on on the campus but uh it was the first time I you know seen Real China and real silver and these beautiful paintings on the mahogany walls and oriental rugs and I mean it was a big change from what I was used to and you know I was kind of enjoying it and having fun

and really wasn't concentrating on my Studies very much well what did your I mean must have a really proud M oh yeah yeah she was she was very proud um my brother had gone into the Navy and um he subsequently came out of the Navy went to University of Michigan uh majored in engineering and he ultimately I started working in the Aerospace industry so he became the rocket Scientist and I became the brain surgeon but uh it all worked out let's rewind a little bit more something happened at age 14 yes it weren't just a

[Music] bookworm yeah it was a major change in my life you know I I had a quick temper I would get very angry and when I got angry I became irrational I would just want to hurt People all I remember one time there was a a boy at school I was in the third grade and we got in a fight and I hit him with a baseball bat and I got in a lot of trouble and uh I I went home and I wanted to kill myself because I didn't want to face you know the

teachers and stuff on back in school and I remember my brother was there I said do You know where the rat poison is he said why do you need rat poison I said I need to kill myself in third grade and he said you know I know a much better way to kill yourself than rat poison I said yeah he said yeah what you do is you drink water until you burst and that'll kill you so I started drinking drinking and I just had to pee so much I Forgot all about killing myself but uh

I remember there was another time one of the neighbors had hit me with a a a pebble really it didn't hurt at all and um I was just in sensed that he would dare hit me and I picked up a large Rock hurled it out broke his glasses almost put his eye out he had to get medical treatment and um Another time I was in school and one of the boys tried to close my locker I didn't want it closed I struck them in the forehead with my fist unfortunately still had the lock in my

hand put a threein gash in his forehead jeez he was bleeding all over the place um I almost got kicked out of school for that one and then my mother was trying to get me to wear something I didn't want to Wear it picked up my hammer went to hit her in the head with it and fortunately my brother caught it from behind now other than that I was a pretty good kid but uh you can see how that temper can get you in a lot of trouble and at age 14 another kid angered me

changed the channel that I was involved with and I had a large camping knife I tried to stab him in the abdomen Wow and uh fortunately under his clothing he had on a large metal belt buckle and a knife plate Struck it with such force that it broke and he fled in Terror but I was probably more horrified than he was cuz I realized at that moment how out of control I was that I was trying to kill somebody overnight nothing and I locked myself in the bathroom and I just started contemplating my Life and

I realized that with a temper like that my options were jail reform school or the grave none of those appealed to me and I just started praying I said Lord you got to help me I can't control my temper I had read about behavioral modification in Psychology today but that's a very expensive proposition we didn't have any money and uh I said Lord You Have To Change me there was a Bible and I picked it up and uh turned to the Book of Proverbs and started reading and there were all the verses about anger like

Proverbs 19:19 it says there's no point getting an angry man out of trouble because he's just going to get right back into it and but there were encouraging verses like Proverbs 16:32 mightier is the man who can control his temper than the man who can conquer his City and there also all these verses about fools and they all seem to fit the description of me and I stayed in that bathroom for 3 hours praying and reading and contemplating and during that time it came to Me that the reason that I was angry all the time

is because I was selfish because it was always about me me my and I somebody did this to me they're in my space I want this I said if you learn how to take yourself out of the center of the equation and insert someone else it will solve your problem and it did that was the last day I had an angry heartburst never had one since that no kidding but it was Because I realized that it was all about me and to change that would make a huge difference in my life so that was when

I really found God that day and I adopted him not only as my heavenly father but as my Earthly father as a person to go to for everything and it made a big difference in my life now I did have perhaps some unrealistic Expectations because one of the verses in the Book of Proverbs in the 10th chapter it says the expectations of the righteous shall come to be so when it came time to me to apply to college I only had enough money to apply to one college so but I wanted to go to Y

so I apped the Y as the only College and I Saidi get in because it says the Expectation of the righteous and I'm pretty righteous I said I should get in and I did wow so that's how I wound up there but like I said I was kind of overwhelmed with all the stuff going on there and but what did your mom what did your mom think when you when you got accepted I think she kind of expected that I would really yeah cuz she she knew what A good student I I mean I was

getting A's and everything had all these Awards and so she said why wouldn't you get in but uh I don't know that she fully understood the significance of of that but uh she was happy about it and but by the end of the first semester I was in trouble because I was treating y like I treated Southwestern High School at Southwestern High School I didn't have to study or I could study in study hall and get a a on the test to next I me it was just too easy and I figured I could do

that at yell also it wasn't working and I was failing freshman chemistry and you can't fail chemistry and get into medical school so I remember the night before the final Exam I just said Lord you know all these years I thought I was going to be a doctor and I thought you wanted me to be one but if I fail chemistry I'm not going to be a doctor so would you actually show me what it is that you really want me to do or alternatively and preferably work a miracle now the chemistry professor had said

either because he was a very good guy or because he was Very sadistic he said anybody who's failing the course I will give you double credit on your final exam so you could not only pass you could actually get a good grade and uh give you sort of that last hope before you went down I think it was sadistic but I was going to study all night I took that that thick stinko and pain chemistry book I was going to go through The whole thing that night obviously that didn't work I fell asleep and I

dreamed I was in this Auditorium I was the only one there there was a nebulous figure working out chemistry problems on the Blackboard and I waken early that morning and that dream was so vivid I went and I looked up everything that was in the dream in the textbook and when I went to take the test the next day and I opened the book I heard the music from The Twilight Zone CU I recognized the first problem as one of the ones I had dreamed about are you serious absolutely and I turned the page and

I recognized the next one and the next one and the next one I aced the exam cuz I'd just seen it tonight before and I just said Lord you'll never have to to do this for me again I will become a serious student and I did but Then when I got to medical school I had another problem because uh I did terribly on the first set of comprehensive exams to the point that my advisor the person who was supposed to help me get through suggested that I drop out Medical School said you're not cut out

for medicine I was devastated since I was 8 years old I wanted to be a doctor I finally get to Medical school and the person who's supposed to help me says drop out you can imagine the devastation I went back to my apartment and of course I prayed I said Lord help me to understand what I should do at this point and I started thinking I said what kind of courses have you always struggled in and I realized that I struggled in courses where I listen to a lot of Boring lectures because I don't get

anything out of boring lectures zero nothing it's a waste of my time and I was sitting in six hours worth of boring lectures every day and what kind of courses do you do well and I do well in courses where I do a lot of reading so I made an executive decision to skip the boying lectures and spend that time reading the rest of medical school was a Snap after that no kidding and years later when I was back at my medical school as the commencement speaker I was looking for that counselor CU I was

going to be tell him he wasn't cut out to be a counselor but all of that you know helped me obviously in a in a very big way along my career but I go back to thinking I was going to be a psychiatrist then I started listening to Some of the lectures by the neurosurgeons and the incredible stuff they were able to do with the brain and the spinal cord and I was just so taken with it and I started moving in that direction that's what I want to do several people discouraged me they said

that's not the right field for you at that time there had been eight black neurosurgeons in the world but you know the Lord does not Distribute Talent based on race I continued to migrate in that direction and that's how I ended up in neuros surgery and uh I started out as an adult neurosurgeon but I very soon started migrating toward Pediatrics because I just love kids and and the potential that exist in kids and Then also with kids you can do things that you can't do in adults because of plasticity the fact that all the

neurons haven't decided what they want to do when they grw up yet so you can do more radical things and it can still turn out okay and um you know the rest is history what kind of br things things like hemispherectomies where you take out half the Brain to cure certain types of intractable seizures the first one that I did was in 1985 little girl from Denver she said I'm from Denver she was from Denver Colorado she was having up to 130 seizures every day they had tried everything to stop them even putting her into

a pin baral coma for two weeks but as soon as they lifted the coma the Seizure started back up again and the head of pediatric neurology at Hopkins is a much older fellow than myself he said would you consider doing a hemispherectomy it's an operation that had really been first done by Walter Dandy uh in about 1930 and uh some others had tried it uh and it was dramatically successful In in stopping some of the seizure activity but the complication the morbidity and IM mortality was so high that it had fallen out of favor so

I read up on all the literature and I said you know a lot of these things that cause these people to die are things that we know how to deal with now that maybe they didn't know how to deal with 1930 or 1940 or 1950 and so maybe if we apply some of The Martin techniques that we have we can do this successfully and that first operation on the little girl from Denver was a spectacular success she was very photogenic as was her mother that got a lot of attention uh that brought in a lot

of calls from other people from around the country who had children who had these intractable seizures uh and and we did a several Hemispherectomies got a lot of attention that was probably my first 15 minutes of fame you say everybody gets 15 minutes of fame that was my 15 minutes uh of Fame but then the next year uh one of the Obstetricians came to me how old are you at this point uh 3 4 34 years old and um one of the Opticians said Ben I have this pregnant woman with twins but one of the

twins Has a severe case of hydrophilus water on her brain and the head is expanding so quickly it's going to caused her to go into premature labor and both babies are going to be lost because their lungs are not mature enough to survive and he said you think you could do an operation by that time I had sort of started developing a a reputation as doing unusual things to save children he said do you think you Could come up with an operation where you could operate on the hydrophilic twin while it's still in the mother's

womb and I know you can't save that one but we could save the other baby who's perfect normal and uh you know there have been a lot of talk about inun surgery New England Journal had had an article about how it would be a very desirable thing but that we weren't quite ready for that Yet but these babies needed it now they couldn't wait until we were ready for it so I contacted a nurse Sur in Philadelphia who' been doing some experimental work on sheep with intrauterine surgery and I said Bob do you think we

could modify your Technique and make it available for humans in a week and uh we went to work on it and we were ready to do it but we Couldn't do it at Hopkins the Ethics Committee said no this is too far out you just can't do this so I went to one of the Community Hospitals and did it there and could see the head of the hydralic baby shrink right on the screen and bought several more weeks of guest station and when the babies were actually born it was a big national news new Story

and um everybody was saying wow this is incredible but then there would there was a lot of criticism too people saying we were ethically not ready to do something like this yet and and some of the experts were critical that is until it became clear that Not only was the normal baby okay but the hydrophilic baby was okay too and then they were saying oh I would have done that too under those Circumstances but uh that was my second 15 minutes of fame what was the I don't understand what was the criticism the criticism was

that this was too risky and what should have what do they what do they what were they implying should have been done well you know I don't think they had a logical thing they didn't have a logical alternative because I engag in something I call the bwa a best worse Analysis in fact I wrote a book called take the risk which I explained to bwa but it involves four questions what's the best thing that happens if I do this what's the worst thing that happens if I do this what's the best thing that happens if

I don't do this what's the worst thing that happens if I don't do this and when you ask those four questions in this situation there's only one option that works you got to do It and uh you know I've asked those four questions about a lot of things during my Neurosurgical career and some people say Carson's a hot dog you know he'll do anything but it's not true it's done based on those four questions and a lot of lives have been saved that perhaps would not have been saved by asking those questions did a lot

of people following those Footsteps uh yeah yeah hemispherectomies are routinely done now uh and at the time when I started doing them they had completely fallen out of Fai I remember some medical students from Harvard called and they said the professors here said that uh that we had misunderstood that you were not taking out half the brain to cure intractable Seizure I said your professors are wrong we are doing but it's done everywhere now at virtually All Children's Hospitals some of the techniques have been improved upon and modified as they are in all surgical procedures

but uh yeah that's an intrauterine surgery is done commonly in many pediatric Hospitals now how did you respond to the criticism did it did it affect you at all amazingly you know I'm I don't Really care too much about criticism I would only care about what God thinks and uh even in my political career you know when people have been critical I don't really pay much attention to it as long as God is not critical I'm good if you're like me health and wellness is extremely important to you but how do you know who to

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8900 or go to americanfinancing.net SSRS all right doctor we're back from the break uh I wanted to kind of dig in a little bit about what was it like preparing for the for the surgery with the twins or it was 22 hours operation there was a very interesting uh time in my life I got very interested in conjoining twins just out of the blue and I was saying why is it that the Mortality rate is so high why did they all die and I concluded after much research that it was exanguination or bleeding to that

and I said you know this is 1987 we we should be able to keep people from bleeding to death we must have some techniques and started thinking about it and you know I talked to the chief of cardiothoracic surgery who was a friend and I said uh Bruce what do you guys do you operate on little babies hearts how Do you keep them from bleeding to death and he told me about hypothermic arrest you cool the body temperature you pump all the blood out stop the hearts and uh you can operate for up to an

hour before you have to restore the circulation without major damage to the brain and I've started thinking I said what if when you got to the part of a separation where they all bleed to death you put them on hypothermic arrest and then you're able to get them Separated and repair the vessels pump the blood back in start to hard up and then I said why am I thinking about this I'm never going to see a set of twins like that few weeks later there they were and uh you know the question was being asked

of various surgical teams in different places around the world do you have a solution because the parents didn't want to take The European solution which was to choose which one should live and to sacrifice the other one and uh you know I explained you know what I had been thinking and everybody saidou know that sounds like it might work and we started having some conferences on it putting a team together uh a few of us actually went Over to Germany to examine the Twins and um we came back and started doing practice sessions where we

would take two dolls and stick them together with bcro and uh figure out what had to be done the nures nurses designed special drapes that could be used so that when you pull the beds apart the drapes would fall into place and maintain the sterility of The fill uh the head nurse and neuro became my psychiatrist you know I would lay down on the couch and close my eyes and she would say tell me what you need tell me what instrument she put together all the uh packs and um it was really quite uh quite

a team effort you know I got so much credit for doing it but I couldn't have done it Without all those people how many people were involved uh the surgical team itself was about 70 people and um 70 people 70 people and probably one of the the most interesting things is that uh uh the head of the department Dr Long uh who had always been a supporter of mine as a resident you know he would have these very prominent patients coming from all over the country all over the World and uh anyone who didn't want

me on their case he would happily show them the door I remember there was one guy he said I can't have a black person operating on me and Dr Long said there's the door uh he just didn't tolerate any of that kind of foolishness at all but uh as the head of the department he could have had the right to have done the Surgery with me as the assistant but now he insisted I I'd be the primary surgeon and that he would assist back to the twins that was a that was a 22-hour operation it

was were you operating for 22 hours straight uh for most of it part of the time the plastic surgeons were uh involved but we did The Lion Share but a lot of people say well how can you stay awake that long but you're not going to Sleep it's like being in in the jungle with a hungry tiger you're not going to sleep until you get out of there but uh after the operation I was sitting in my office with one of the other neurosurgeons we were discussing the case and we both fell asleep in mids

sentence and woke up three hours [Laughter] later downstairs uh I was having a conversation with her wife and she had brought up the fact that you you Had how did she word it basically she was saying that you were operating outside of the law outside of what outside of the law outside of the law I don't know maybe maybe in a specific case maybe maybe outside of tradition maybe outside of tradition yeah never never never outside of the law outside of legal scope maybe I don't I don't know the no I don't think you know

what she's talking about I don't know what she's Talking about um well we certainly did things that were non-traditional and that uh would would not be what other people would do that may be what she was talking about well we skipped ahead a couple of years so I want to rewind where where did you first meet your wife candy uh um we were both from Detroit but we had to go to Yale to meet each other and uh your wife was a gale as Well yes she was two years behind me and uh I knew

that she was a musician uh from a previous conversation and the church that I was going to needed an organist so I said you know would you like to come to our church and try out for Oregon and she said I haven't played for a while but uh sure and uh that didn't work out but she started singing in the [Laughter] choir and U you know that fall uh at Thanksgiving we both wanted to go back home for Thanksgiving but neither of us had the money to go back home for Thanksgiving but the school said

if you will recruit for them uh they will pay the expenses of you're going back home so we were able to go back home on Yale's Dime uh including their credit card so we were able to go out and have dinner and lunch and you know we kind of discovered that we liked each other and um when it was time to go back you know we had been out late that night and we had to drive all night to get the car back on time it was a rental car and fell asleep on Interstate 80

at Youngstown Ohio going 90 miles an hour And awakened by the vibrations of the car as it was going off the road and I whipped the wheel and instead of the car going bouncing down the Ravine it just started spinning like a top they say before you die you see a video real of your life I did and figured we were dead car stopped on the lane next to the shoulder and I could pull off just as an 18-wheeler came Barling through and we just said to each other I Think the Lord just saved our

lives and he obviously did that for a reason he's got something for us to do and that was our first kiss and that's when we started going together and that was on November the 28th 1972 we celebrate the 28th of every month since then every month since then Y what do you guys do to celebrate uh we may go out to dinner or have a special dinner or special dessert Or just acknowledge the fact that we're still alive how many months is that now uh it's been about six 600 months wow people would have forgotten

about us a long time ago when did you decide to get married uh we got married in July of 1975 candy graduated in June of 75 but got married in July 75 how did you propose you know I don't remember specifically I mean we always knew that We were going to get married it just there wasn't really any other consideration did candy grow up in poverty as well uh not as Extreme as what I grew up in uh you know her mother was a school teacher her father had a problem with uh alcohol uh worked

in a factory so they Were lower middle class you know being and and her father died while she was in high school while she was in high school yeah have you ever tried to find your father since 8 years old oh yeah no we would occasionally uh have interaction with him the last time I saw him was at my wedding but uh you know we didn't have a lot of contact with him he refused to play Alamon and you know my mother would take him to court and maybe say he was going to pay and

then he never would and she finally just gave up on it and just said I'll just work three jobs what was the what was the typical interaction like between you and him uh usually relatively brief but I remember one time he took us to see a a movie that kind of thing um never any prolonged interactions but you know I I wasn't Angry with him you know I just didn't for a number of years understand what the relationship was I didn't know that I didn't know about his other family until some years after the the

divorce my mother kind of shielded us from from that but you know even though as a child I prayed all the time that they would get Back together later on in life I understood why God never answered that prayer in the affirmative because you know he was involved with with drugs and alcohol and women and things that would not have been a good influence on me so you know there's a there's a lot of kids growing up in poverty and a lot of people stuck in poverty today and and you know I think um I

think a lot of them Don't don't see a way out or maybe they're never even exposed to what what else is out there what it could be and I did I didn't grow up in poverty but but I have spent a lot of time in the military and Contracting for the agency and it took me to some of the poorest places in the world and you know when when when I've always been very fascinated with with how people live and uh in extreme situations like that or extreme To me and so you know being in

Yemen or Afghanistan and seeing seeing people that live like it's almost like Biblical times or you know haven't really devolved much for thousands of years still living in mud Huts burning trash to keep warm I mean they don't they don't really get the snapshot of what you know a typical what western life is like but some of them still make it out And and I think I mean I don't know but I would I I I think it may be the same and and in poverty in the US maybe they don't get the snapshot of

what they just think this is it this is how it is this is what it's like everywhere and and is that is I mean is that kind of what it's like uh I think it's different for different people it's a matter of perspective you know one of the things my mother used to do is uh is take us to the homes that She cleaned and they were usually Grand Homes beautiful neighborhoods and then she bring us back to where we live and point out the drunk sitting on the corner with a bag drinking out like

like nobody knew what he was doing and she would say you have a choice you rather live there where I work or on that corner drinking from a bag and you know she always pointed out Those contrasts and the fact that it's your choice it's not nothing is written in stone that you have to go down one lane or the other you get to make a choice and understanding that I think made a huge difference for both myself and my brother in fact I always say if if everybody had my mother I don't think we'd

have any problems and I think it's it's so Important you know for children no matter where they're born and no matter what their social circumstances uh to see other perspectives you know one of the things they do for instance in New Zealand which is sort of isolated out there in the ocean uh is they require the children in their latter part of high school to go Overseas somewhere to see other parts of the world and how people live and the poorest people in the United States live much better than a lot of people in the

world you know my wife and I have been to 68 countries and we've lived overseas and um we've seen a lot of stuff and it it does make a big Difference where did you live overseas Australia what were you doing there well when I was chief resident in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins we had the grand opening of the NeuroScience Center and since Hopkins is like the modern birth place of neurosurgery all the big wigs from around the world were there including one of the big wigs from Australia and he took a liking to me and

said you should come to Australia to be Our senior registar at our major teaching Hospital in Western Australia and I said Australia you got to be kidding I didn't say that out loud that's what I was thinking and um I kind of poo pooed the idea and it seemed like every time I turned around there was somebody saying good ey M how you going I just kept running to Australians everywhere and it seemed like they're really nice people And every time we turned the TV on there was a special on about Australia and I said

to Candy I think the Lord wants us to go to Australia so she started doing some research uh she discovered that they they did have a whites only policy but it was an unofficial policy and it had officially been abolished in 1968 that was 1983 so we said yeah we're going to go to Australia and off we went our friends Were saying you'll be back in 3 weeks but little did they know we only do we didn't have any more money we couldn't come back but you know the biggest problem is keeping up with all

the dinner invitations they love Americans and uh but it turned out to be a God thing because there were only four Neurosurgical consultants in all of Western Australia and once they discovered that I could operate you know they left me largely in charge of things at the major teaching hospital and they went out to the private hospitals and um I learned a lot from from each one of them there were things that they taught me that I had not learned uh at Hopkins and um but I was doing multiple major craniotomies every day I got

an enormous amount of Experience doing complex cases and um when I came back to Hopkins the position open up for director of pediatric neurosurgery normally they would go out and get somebody with a lot of gray hair and a big resume but uh you know Dr Long said well Ben is only 33 years old but he can do everything so I became Chief pediatric Nur surgery at a very young age and But I had been prepared for that by going to Australia 68 other countries we have done a lot of traveling mostly vacation professional life

uh a combination combination of of both where's your favorite place United States of America suck into that uh probably Australia I enjoyed uh Australia a lot we still have friends over there that we communicate with and they've been over Here to visit with us but um also enjoyed South Africa I've been there several times what brought you to South Africa uh separating twins we we separate cre a couple of sets of twins in South Africa wow you know being a neurosurgeon uh what what are your thoughts on Neurolink well you know Elon Musk is an

amazing person and I think neuralink has some real potential obvious L it's in its infancy right now um but of course any good thing we always find a way to pervert it also um so we obviously you're going to have to be very careful with the way that we manipulate the human brain And it's a same thing with uh virtual reality and AI uh obviously there are wonderful things that can be done with them but anytime you have a new technology people are going to try to use it in the various ways in order to

enrich themselves so we just have to be very careful what are some ways that you think that neuralink could become perverted uh Militarily you could uh program people to be without a conscience and to act without a conscience and to become killing machines I think that's a real possibility how would that work you would uh basically be able to control their emotions and tell them what to do and they would do It uh without second thoughts about it and you know they could be programmed to steal things to do a a whole bunch of things

that people who are morally conscious would not do what are some positives uh you could create a lot of mother teresas and people who would just be programmed to do good things and to always be looking out you know for Others but uh you could also program people to become math Wizards and uh very proficient at technical things so you know I have mixed feelings about that kind of Technology of course I don't think we even understand the possibilities of what we can do but things like that a lot of it will become more apparent

as As it's starting to be used would you like to see a move forward I would prefer to see us spend more time cultivating the best of people by bringing them up the right way having the right influences in their lives uh bringing church and morality back having a Revival on our system uh encouraging people to prepare themselves Academically um creating the can do attitude in America as opposed to the what can you do attitude because I believe that the potential that that exist in each human being is Absolut enormous if it's cultivated the correct

way I think anybody who has a normal brain can do almost anything if that brain is programmed in the appropriate way you don't believe in limitations well there probably are some Limitations but they're nowhere near as low as we place them and uh I think you can take a a a normal child and I think you can make that person into a nuclear physicist you just have to train them the right way the brain has the capacity to do that if you looked into some of the stuff that's going on with psychedelic therapy Uh no

I really haven't looked into that as far as treating traumatic brain injuries and addictions and haven't looked into that no no I I suspect there's probably some interesting things going on there though but uh all they're doing is discovering some of the capacities the hidden capacities of the brain why do you think why are those hidden capacities Coming out during when people are are undergoing a psychedelic experience because during those psychedelic experiences some of the inhibitory forces uh that block things from happening are removed and you begin to to see and experience things that you

might otherwise not some of which can be quite frightening and some of which can be Very pleasant do you have any thoughts on should we move forward with researching that or or legalizing doesn't really matter what I think about it they going to move forward they can't resist as part of our you know they say curiosity kill the cat well we got a lot of curiosity and we're just going to keep moving forward with all of these uh Interventions of the human brain because it's a vast unexplored territory it's the reason that I want to

go into psychi patry and neurosurgery because the brain is one of the last Frontiers I had initially I toyed a little bit with the idea of becoming a cardiothoracic surgery I said we know almost everything there is to know already about the heart and the lungs we know nothing about the brain and as a medical student I said You could probably uh make significant contributions in neural it'd be hard to do that in cardiac where does Consciousness Live Well it's in the brain it's in the human brain um it is not something that obviously we've

been able to quantitate or or understand uh completely but it is clearly There it's at a different level I think in human beings than it is in animals and I think it's one of the mechanisms that allows us to communicate with God animals I don't think necessarily have the ability to do that and I don't think that we utilize our Consciousness uh anywhere close to its capacity I think a human brain that was functioning at Capacity would be capable of things that are unimaginable to us do you think all Consciousness is located inside the brain

or do you think it yeah I I mean it's I don't know how it emanates from the brain and how far it goes but you know you've seen it people who have the ability to if there was a fork on that table over there cause it to Move without actually touching it uh they've some how managed to do that that's part of their stream of Consciousness that has control of the environment and uh it's something that we have very little understanding of and you know there are people like JS Bach think about all the music

that he was able to prod this incredible to be able to do a new mass Or a new Canada in a matter of days you think of somebody like um George Frederick handle produced the Messiah in three weeks that's just incredible how did they do that it's hard to explain what do you find Most Fascinating about the human mind I think the ability for it to to change people's lives the fact that you can take Somebody who is moving in the wrong direction and they can undergo a conversion experience that makes them into a different

person but are they really a different person they have the same arms and legs and the Heart and Lung but it's the it's the brain it's the mind that has changed them that has made them into a different person no other part of the body does That that's why we spend so much time my wife and I uh trying to provide opportunities for children that's why we created the Carson Scholars fund that's why we have the little patriots component of the American Cornerstone Institute because we know that if you can positively affect the mind the

brain of a young person you can change the trajectory of the Let's move into politics so what what was it I mean you obviously had a extremely successful career in the medical field and so what what was it that why did you feel called to leave that and to get into politics well you know somebody told me that neurosurgeons die early and uh I didn't believe it so I wrote down the name of the 10 the last 10 neurosurgeons that I knew who died and I calculate the average age of death and it was 61

and I said I'm going to retire when I turn 61 if I'm still alive well well that same year I was asked to speak at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast as the keynote speaker which I thought was very strange because I had spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1997 when Bill Clinton was President I didn't know anybody ever did it twice but I did some research and found out that there was one person who had done it twice and that was Billy Graham and I said that's pretty good company so I agreed to do it

and after that speech everybody was saying you should run for president I said these people are crazy why would I do something like that And but I figured if I just ignored them it would go away but it didn't go away every place I went there were people at blackards run Ben run had over 500,000 petitions in my office and I finally just said Lord you know I don't want to run for president but if you really want me to you have to give me all the things that a person who runs for president has

a Rolodex with all the important names and organization a lot of Money next thing I knew all those things were there our organization was Raising more money than the RNC and um it was a fascinating experience as I got out on the road traveled to the smallest little hamlets in Tennessee or Alabama to the largest cities I was impressed by the fact that most of the American populace has common Sense but I was disappointed that most of them did not have courage those people were not willing to stand up for what they believed in they

wanted to go along to get along they didn't want to be cancelled and I realized that that was a problem for our country how did you figure that out how did you figure out that the majority of People don't have courage uh by by talking to them by asking them why aren't you doing something about this because people realized that our country was moving in the wrong direction but very few people were willing to do anything about it to stand up for it that's in the process of changing we saw the manifestation of that in

this last Election but it required a lot of people to be out there beating the bushes and that's why we were out there beating the bushes and we'll continue to do so because we still have ways to go we're a heavily divided country and uh we've lost a lot of our moral compass uh you know things like traditional marriage Uh are not occurring anymore uh or or occurring late uh we're not having children in 1960 the average woman had 3 .6 children now we're down to 1.6 that's a problem um you know in terms of

traditional nuclear families all you have to do is look at television for five minutes any new series that comes on before they introduce an alternative to the Traditional nuclear family um the values all of our values are being questioned and people are being driven apart what happens if we continue down the trajectory of a 1.6 birth rate per family what is the math on that well we become irrelevant how fast hard to say but probably pretty quickly you you See how how much we've changed as a country just in the last 30 years things are

going on now that no one would have imagined 30 years ago and sometimes the country is hardly recognizable anymore but I don't think that's the way that the majority of Americans want it to be and one of the things that we've been trying to do is get people to wake up Particularly people of faith it doesn't have to be that we're denigrating marriage anymore it doesn't have to be that we're mutilating little children and taking advantage of the fact that they're very suggestible and very very curious and doing things to them that will ruin their

lives forever uh those things don't have to be We don't have to have men playing in women's sports all of these things are eroding our moral Fabric and that's exactly what those who want to fundamentally change us one if you look at the Congressional Record from January the 10th 1963 Congressman Herlong of Florida read into the Congressional Record the 45 goals of Communism in America and they included all of those things gaining control of the schools and the teacher Union so you could indoctrinate the kids gaining control of the media and Hollywood so you change

the culture of America uh making sexual perversion normal natural and healthy denigrating the role of the family elevating the role of government uh it's all in there and we need to understand that We're under attack and we have to fight back who do you think is orchestrating all of this there have been people who have been opposed to the American way in American values since the very beginning um the Europeans thought that we were crazy they said you can't run a nation on the will of the people you have to have a monarch you have

to have a ruler but in today's world we have to Condem contend with the factions that still believe that socialism and communism is is a better way of life that you give control of your life over to others who will guarantee that they will take care of you from the Cradle to the Grave even though it's never worked anywhere else there are still those who push that and will continue to push it and they've gained a lot of Momentum uh you can see how a lot of the college students uh seem to be taking that

as something that is good and I don't think that they really understand what socialism and communism is and they don't really understand how good they have it in this country and what the opportunities are in this country for success but uh we have to continue to fight that Fight and bring people to the point where they actually we look at the data uh we'll look at what has happened historically uh we'll look around them and see who really has their best interest in mind and who is utilizing them and I think that's a fight that's

worth engaging in what do you think the most effective way to fight this is Education one of the things that you'll notice that the leftist in this country do is they Shield people from information uh you'll notice that the mainstream media did a very good job of keep keeping people away from the knowledge of what was going on I remember coming back from the airport and I asked the limo driver what His thoughts were about Hunter Biden's computer his laptop he didn't know anything about it because you know he listens to the wrong news sources

didn't know it was a complete shock to hear to hear about that and and a lot of these children that you see on these campuses uh rallying for Hamas and against Israel they don't know anything they're Shouting about the river to the Sea they don't know what river they don't know what sea they don't know what the whole conflict is all about they are manipulated because they're ignorant and ignorant is bliss for the left because ignorant people are easy to manipulate what about raising your kids what about I mean I I don't know I think

that one of the ways that I think It's going to be a long turn around you know if we turn it around it seems like we're doing you know making Leaps and Bounds right now but we've seen that pendulum swing really far right and really far left there doesn't seem to see much uh balance right and um so it's I guess what I'm saying is I believe it's a generational fight and just you have three sons how old are your sons uh 41 39 and 37 do they have kids they all have children Y and

I feel like that uh a lot of parents have abandoned their parental responsibilities for social media mhm that has happened they give their kids the phone the phone raises the kid keeps them occupied so that the parent can be on the phone and um I mean to me it seems you know we need to get back To raising your kids pouring into them giving them everything you have teaching them the values not handing them the phone and and no question about it and that that's the the reason that my my wife and I wrote our

last book the perilous fight the attack on the American family combating it um and we talk about the fact that parents have to take back that responsibility you can't leave that To the rest of the world including social media or you will suffer the consequences of it you know we only have one grandchild right now who's in adolescence but you know she's wanting a cell phone and the the parents are not giving her one they say maybe a flip phone uh but they fully recognize the deleterious effects of social media which has other objectives rather

than raising Patriotic successful individuals I'm curious to know you know what what is what is your best piece of advice on just being a good father well the very best piece of advice would be to strengthen your relationship with God you know I I don't want to preach but I have a very strong faith in God and he's answered so many of my requests including a request for wisdom and Direction when sometimes the way looks murky which way to go he's never let me down but when you have that relationship with God it automatically improves

your relationship with other People including your spouse and your children and you begin to understand the responsibilities that you have particularly as a role model as a protector as a provider and so how do they build that relationship with God I mean I just figured it out about a year and a half ago and it's totally changed my life yeah but I think for people That I think for people that are new to it they need a little bit more than strengthen the relationship how do they communicate with God how do they build a relationship

what God tells you in the Bible he says you will find me when you seek me with all your heart got to look for him he's not going to force himself on you but the word is there there are other people There but if you're looking earnestly for that relationship you'll find it there's know one size fits all you just have to know that you want it and to seek it and I need to seek the bathroom once again all right can you believe it's 2025 I'm amazed every year to see how much my kids

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no attention to It did you have any fear of the smear campaigns or anything like that for for your family's sake was that a big decision for you well you know my wife wasn't particularly enthusi about enthusiastic at first until the grandchildren started coming along and then she realized that we have to do this for their sake for their future possibilities and um certainly you don't want your family To be adversely affected and you know particularly one of my sons uh is very entrepreneurial we don't want uh his opportunities to be affected but I think

we all came to the understanding that we're working for the well-being of our country and sometimes you have to sacrifice in order to do that how long did it take for her to uh get on board with you it didn't take very long once the grandchildren started popping Out I remember it was the it was the presidential debate in 2016 when the announcers skipped over your name and Donald Trump waited and walked out with you it looked like you guys were having some type of a conversation uh well you know that really showed what kind

of person he is because all the others gleefully walked by and uh he came and stood by me and waited until the situation was Rectified he also was the only of the other candidates who complained to the media that they weren't asking any questions everybody else was glad they weren't asking me questions why weren't they asking you questions I don't know um I think maybe they were afraid to give me too much attention why because they knew that I had good Answers you know they complained they said you don't know enough about Foreign Affairs I

did a onehour press conference in South Carolina with all the major media there were a lot of them there answered every single question they never said a thing about it what is it about you you think that they did not want you in there I think they were afraid that particularly a lot of the people that They count on uh many of the minorities and disadvantage people would identify with me and it would impact their base in a very negative way for them you're probably really on to something there what what what you know there's

more it seems like I hope so so but seems like more and more good people are starting to get into Politics not saying a lot but um I I a lot of my veteran friends are starting to get involved I've thought about getting involved I think I have a bigger impact doing what I'm doing now than I ever would running for office but um but I see them doing it my good friend Eli crane he's in there yeah I mean there's a lot of veterans you know getting involved and so I'm curious what what advice

do you Have for anybody who wants to get involved and wants to run I mean because it is also I mean it's I mean it's a daunting task I mean it's seems like you're going up against the impossible well you know first of all uh recognize that our nation was formed of formed by the people and that the the government works For the people not the other way around and I think many people are starting to come to that understanding now many of these people that you just talked about who are running um it takes

a lot of courage to do it um you have to be willing to sacrifice yourself and your family there's no question about that but the rewards are also Great and that you bring the issues to the Forefront if you're a good politician um and you really work on behalf of the people fully recognizing that there are many people in the system who are not good people who are doing things only to enhance their own position H to enhance their own wealth it's no coincidence that many of the people who get into our government come in

as people of moderate means and end As multi-millionaires uh on the salary of a government worker obviously there's some things going on there that aren't culture um but to be on the other side of that to actually represent the people is is a great thing and it's why we've been able to survive all of this time as you remember Ben Franklin after the 1787 constitutional convention was asked sir what do we have here a monarchy or Republic he said a republic if you can keep it the only way we can keep it is to have

people who are willing to undergo that self-sacrifice and to make themselves truly the representatives of that which which is good for the people you got involved well you didn't get involved you walked into the HUD with no government experience can tell us a little bit about what what that was like how long did it take you to get I settled I got a lot of government experience very quickly because it was eight months before I had a deputy secretary it was 5 months before I had any assistant secretaries so every day was like drinking from

the fire hydrant and I didn't have a lot of buffer in Between so you had to learn stuff very very quickly and uh there were some people early on who were not the best people let's just put it that way but uh once we got our assistant secretaries and deputy secretary in place and uh surrounded ourselves with very confident and good people we were able to move very rapidly uh as I mentioned earlier um the fiscal situation was pretty bad When I got there no audits for eight years uh and you will always heard these

horrible stories about the fiscal mismanagement at HUD and how money was missing and nobody knew where it was you probably noticed that stopped about a year and a half until the Trump administration because we got it all straightened out we were able to get Irv Dennis who was a uh senior at ernston Young Senior partner and he was reluctant at first But uh we bugged him until he finally agreed to come and uh to get the stuff under control it made a a huge difference once we were able to do that and um you know

the real key for a secretary of any of the agencies is not necessarily to know everything but it's to put people around you who Together know everything and to work closely with them and you know to be able to take information and to use it in an effective way and that's that's where wisdom comes I'd rather have somebody who's very wise than somebody who's a know-it-all and is not wise you said poverty is a state of mind and that ruffled a lot of feathers how did you I mean did I guess maybe I guess maybe

it didn't bother you cuz you don't respond To criticism so well you know if you have a Victor's me mentality it doesn't matter what happens to you you rise to the top uh you know they can take everything away from you and you go from the sea Suite to the street but if you have a Victor's mentality you'll be right back up there before long if you have a victim's mentality I can dust you off and put a three-piece suit on you and put you in the Sea Street and you'll Find your way back down

that's what I meant by that so let's talk about what you're doing now we started talking about some of the stuff but tell me about the American Cornerstone well you know as I mentioned before I decided I wanted to retire at 61 uh I failed that retirement but after the first Trump Administration I said this time I'm really going to be the retire um but it wasn't many Weeks uh after that election seeing the direction that we were going in with the Biden Administration I said I can't have any fun playing golf all day and

cruising around the world and what watching my country go down the tubes so myself and some very talented uh people from HUD uh started the American Cornerstone Institute which emphasizes the Cornerstone principles that made us until great country you know we didn't Go from a bunch of rag tag militian to the Pinnacle of the World by accident it was because of what we believed in and that was our faith which teaches us how to Rel to each other our judeo Christian values say love your neighbor not cancel your neighbor if they have a different yard

sign or you disagree with them but love your neighbor the second Cornerstone being Liberty the freedom to live the life That you want to live uh one way or the other as long as it doesn't interfere with other people and that Liberty is what has attracted so many people from all over the world uh and those who try to say that that we're a horrible country that we're racist systemically that we don't treat people fairly if that were true why would all these people be trying to get in here obviously that's not True and then

the next Cornerstone is community um you know the ability to live together to work together to be happy together uh that was one of of the things that gave America a huge advantage and one of the reasons that we Rose to the top so quickly and if we abandon that sense of community we will sink just as rapidly and then the fourth Cornerstone life honoring life from the womb to the Tomb and that means not only being pro-life and respecting what God has created but also caring about those people on the street many of whom

are drug addicts many of whom are mentally ill can't take care of themselves we have a responsibility to deal with that and it can't be just housing first 90% of those people end up back on the street it has to be also housing second why they on the street and housing third Fix it you know most of those drug addicts who are out there if they could push a button and they wouldn't be a drug addict anymore they wear that button out but it's not that simple and we have to we have to be willing

to deal with that we were in fact on the verge of a very exciting program in Los Angeles I was working with Garcetti who was the mayor uh with Nome the government Governor with several of the county Executives uh to basically take care of the homelessness problem and I think it would have worked but just before we pull the trigger guess what happened Co everything was off the table but I do believe it is very possible for Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve these problems how were you going to tackle that problem uh

basically by using some of The government land and in California at that time there was a$2 200 billion dollar Surplus they've squandered it now um to provide some of the ancillary uh Services particularly for the mentally ill I talked to the head of the American Psychiatric Society he said the vast majority of those people with regular counseling here and medications can become very functional and uh the same thing with The drug addicts but if you don't provide the ancillary Services it'll never happen and you just continue to accumulate more and more of those individuals and

the other thing that we would do is relax many of the regulations that prevent you from doing that does California have the highest homeless population the largest homeless population and the Majority of them are mentally ill about anywhere from 40 to 60% are there because of mental illness or drug addiction why do you think there's such a high concentration of mentally ill in that state well consider the population that they have you know 30 plus million people you know that's 10% of our population so that's why they have the highest numbers I don't think there's

anything Special about California other than the fact that they tolerate a lot of stuff and they don't necessarily prosecute the people who distribute the drugs vigorously how are you getting the message out about American Cornerstone uh I do a lot of lectures we have a very significant social media presence And uh that's primarily the way we get it out where do you do the lectures uh all over the country um and I talk about it in uh many of the venues we go to I'll talk about it tomorrow night in South Carolina I'll talk about

it next week in the places where we are doing uh things for uh Charlie Kirk's organiz ation uh I've been very impressed with The young people at the various universities with the Turning Point program uh they're very interested in what we're talking about do you talk about this in improv neighborhoods at all in what in in in in lower income neighborhoods uh people from lower income neighborhoods are able to come to the talks they are in many cases yes and then I have done a number of things that Are on the internet that or on

YouTube that they have access to what's the response then uh I get a lot of letters and correspondents from from people who are very grateful and um that's why we keep doing it it would be much easier just to sit back and relax and put our feet up well Dr Carson it's been Uh an honor to talk to you here and so kind of want to close this out but in closing what would you like to see the majority of Americans do what's the one thing I would like for them to recognize that we are

not enemies W NE Wayne we are not enemies don't allow anybody to make you think that just because somebody disagrees with you that they're your enemy our strength in the Past has come from the fact that we have learned to overcome our differences and work together and if we can bring that sense back our strength will be unlimited why aren't you going to be in president Trump's cabinet this time around well president Trump and I are still in communication but uh you know I strongly feel that we need to move aside people who are Older

and push forward people who are younger because does it make a lot of sense for somebody who's probably not going to be around in 20 years to be making policies that will impact people who will be here 203 40 years from now I think you can work very well in the background as an advisor and a consultant I mean I would agree with that but on the same token you've got a lot of wisdom that younger People don't have yet and that's but we disate we disseminate that and uh sort of like yourself uh what

we're doing with American Cornerstone with Carson Scholars various other endeavors uh I think is very supportive of the administration and what they're doing so uh I still encourage people to go into government one of the components of American Cornerstone is something we call the executive branch for America and it's an online course that you can take that will teach you how the government works all the ins and outs how a bill becomes a bill uh how finances are managed by the government uh all the various intricacy why why is that so important because if you

go into government or you're one of the government staffers it usually takes you a Year to get acclimated to what's going on by taking this online course free of charge by the way uh you can hit the ground running and we need more conservatives uh in the federal [Music] government who actually know how things work how do you think the first couple months of the new administration's going uh I'm Enthusiastic uh seeing people actually getting involved with trimming the fat uh those who are having the fat trimmed are screaming like wow pigs but uh you

know if we don't do this we're going to go bankrupt and uh the quality of everybody's life will suffer enormously if that's the case some people are able to see that and able to understand that and some people are not but I think we're making good Progress I think so too very hopeful well Dr Carson thank you so much well thank you for having me thank you for being a pat so that's a luot to you thank you thank you [Music] no matter where you're watching Shan Ryan Show from if you get anything out of

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