We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Joshenski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts into the premium version of our
website as well. We're honored today to be joined by doctor ben Carson.
He is the founder and the chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and the author
of the new book, The Perilist Fight, Overcoming Our Culture's War on the
American Family. Doctor Carson, thank you for joining us, Thanks for having
me absolutely. Could you talk to us just a little bit about what inspired
this book. Again, it's called The perilst Fight, Overcoming Our Culture's War
on the American Family. Why did you feel the need to write this book
at this time? Well, you know, our country was formed in the
crucible of conflict and war, and we had to fight for our freedom.
And it was interesting eight and seventeen eighty seven at the last Constitutional Convention,
Rucus ruckus fight. That's disagreement, but the good guys prevailed and after the
words Benjamin Franklin came out of the building. He was asked by a woman,
Sir, what do we have here, a monarchy or a republic?
And he said, a republic if you can keep it. And we've kept
it for two hundred and forty years, but we're as close to losing it
now as we ever have been, and we're in another perilous fight, just
like we were then when we had a bunch of rag tag militiamen who defeated
what seemed to be an insurmountable army of the British Empire. But it happened
because we understood who our enemy was and we were determined to defeat it.
We're in a situation now where we have people who are trying to fundamentally change
this country by dividing us and attacking the fundamental blocks of our foundation, which
are our families and our faith. And as we allow those things to be
dissolved, we're moving downward just as quickly as we moved upward when we grasps
the right principles. So that's why I felt a need to make people aware
of what was going on, because a lot of people just say, oh,
we're hopelessly gone. We can't do anything about it. It's the end
of our era. But it's not. It's only if we don't learn and
understand what's going on. Do you remember when you first when it really struck
you. Maybe there's a particular moment, or maybe it happened gradually over the
time, but over time, But was there a moment when you really realized
how dire the situation was in the US, and how dire the situation was
in American culture? That what we you know, some people's cases, what
they felt like they grew up with the country that they grew up in,
they didn't recognize. Was there a moment like that for you, doctor Carson?
Well, really kind of started back in the late nineties when we started
having the political correctness movement, and I realized at that time that if that
wasn't stifled, that it would grow at mushroom. And that's exactly what it
has done. It's mushroom now to the woke movement, and we've reached the
point now where we have those who have power trying to impose their views on
everyone else. And interestingly enough, if you look back at the beginnings of
our country, our founders studied every governmental system that ever existed. They were
eclecticists. They took the good stuff and left the bad stuff out. But
one of the things that they discovered is that all government systems tend to move
in the same direction, growing, infiltrating and dominating. They wanted us to
be different, and that's why they've worked so hard on our constitution. But
you can see already that that dominating is starting to infiltrate our system. You
saw it a lot with COVID mandatory, this mandatory that it turned out all
to be based on falsehoods. And even now you see a government saying you
have to drive this kind of vehicle rather than allowing the market forced us to
determine what kind of vehicle you're going to drive. You know, it's the
environment that we created that allowed innovation and entrepreneurship that drove us to the pinnacle
of the world. And if we start mandating things and having the government decide
what is right and what is wrong, you will basically snuff out that kind
of innovation and creativity. And government mandates are so often crony capitalism, and
a lot of people saw the influence of that over the course of COVID.
If they looked at, you know, for example, Farmer's relationship with the
FDA, and even conservatives who typically were uncomfortable with some of these topics that
criticize you know, business leaders that they generally trusted over the government, had
their eyes opened up to how much crony capitalism really did dictate policy and how
much of it dictated culture. Do you share that view, doctor Carson,
that some in to some extent, there's really been a as youram Hazoni has
said, a privatization of virtue that hasn't always gone well in the last couple
of decades, as we kind of as we've kind of lost some of these
shared touchstones, points of consensus, you know, about what is a man,
what does a woman? What is you know, family? What should
it look like? It seems like we've lost our way and some people that
conservatives pro previously trusted in the business sector, you know, for example,
have gone in the other direction on what they call trans rites or anything like
that. How should conservatives look at a big business right now, doctor Carson?
Is they feel that we're in a culture war? Well, I'm not
sure if it's so much that people don't understand what's going on as it is,
that they lacked the courage to stand up against it. You know,
when I was running for president, I traveled to off fifty states, the
smallest little hamlets to the biggest cities, and what I discovered is most of
the people actually had common sense and had a sense of what was right and
wrong. Well, what I also discovered is that most people would rather stand
in the corner and stare at their shoes than to speak up and potentially be
called a nasty name or be canceled. And that's the real problem. You
know, you can't be the land of the free if you're not the home
of the brave. And unless people realize that we're actually in a fight,
they're certainly not going to join that fight. And we're told what not to
talk about from the time you're a child, said don't talk about politics and
don't talk about religion. But those are the very areas that are being heavily
attacked, and they want to work in the darkness. They don't want you
to know what they're doing, so they say, don't talk about this.
It's sort of like with election integrity. Don't even mention the election integrity.
It's like if you stole the cookie or the cookie jar. You don't want
to talk about the cookie, dear. You can't talk about the cookie jar.
You can talk about anything else if you didn't sell them. You don't
care talk about cookie jar. You want This is the situation that we're in
right now. Yeah. Absolutely, And actually on that point, I was
curious to ask ask you about your experience just with the so called mainstream media,
really the corporate media as we like to call them at the Federalist.
Over the course of your time in the Trump administration, after time the Trump
administration as a presidential candidate, you've seen up close better than most people the
deception and the corruption of the press in America. And so, from your
perspective of your vantage point, what role does the American media play in fomenting
this culture war and in pushing us further and further from as you write about
these sort of values that the country was founded on. Well, you know,
the only business protected by the Constitution is the press. And why is
that? It's because they were supposed to present to the people unbiased information about
whatever what was going on, so that the people could decide what their will
was. Because the country was supposed to be run on the will of the
people and what was good for the people and with the people first. But
the press has decided to put its thumb on the scale instead of being objective,
and that's caused enormous damage. And they don't seem to even understand what
they're doing, because what is the first thing that Marxist governments do completely control
the press. They don't realize they're digging their own grade, and they're sort
of what Vladimir Lenin referred to as useful idiots. And I'm just hopeful that
at some point some of the younger journalists will come to their senses and recognize
that they've been giving a tremendous responsibility and the press, and they should use
it in an effective way for the people, not against the people. And
the New York Times just this week was freaking out about Schedule F, which
is one of the many policy proposals that the conservative movement has put together,
targeting Schedule F. And you were overseeing a lot of people that potentially would
be affected by a proposal like that in the Trump administration. But at the
same time, you know, as you write in this book, this is
a culture war, and you know these are dire times, desperate times,
and what do you think about conservative policies that might target the vast federal bureaucracy.
Are those essential to conservatives winning the culture war? Do things like schedule
F really have to happen in order to win that battle? Well, we
need to recognize that the government is very bloated and very centralized. It's problematic.
I think that all the federal agencies reside in Washington, d C.
And there's a certain political persuasion that exists in the Washington area. Son of
federal employees and of the executive branch employees are people with a washing and DC
type mentality. That's wrong, and it's very difficult to remove people who aren't
doing an effective job for the people. I can tell you that from what
I've seen, And we need to be thinking about the government. The president
actually does have the ability to remove large swaths of people. Can't necessarily pick
on an individual, but you can remove large groups of people, and we
ought to be thinking about how to do that effectively and shift people around and
maybe move some of the federal agencies to other parts of the country so that
it's more reflective of the entire country rather than just a particular ideology. And
that's actually such an interesting point because I also wanted to ask about how much
policy because so much of what you write about in this book face family.
These are things that can arratives have often looked at us outside the realm of
the policy sphere. These are things that are come from parents, come from
grandparents, come from your church, and all of that. And there's some
conservatives who are very interested in, for example, what vicor Orbon has done
in Hungry and encouraging people to have children, encouraging people to have families.
There's talk of a child tax credit, there's child tax credit in the Trump
tax bill. But what role does policy play? Is there a serious,
robust role for conservative policy in sort of we're scoring American culture. If so,
what things could be looked at, Well, we certainly don't want to
legislate morality. But you look at some of the policies that exist currently,
such as if you're getting a house the housing subsidy and you get a raise,
you have to report that so that your rent can go up. Well,
that's not a whole lot of incentive to climb the ladder. Or if
you bring someone else into your house hold with an income, you have to
report that so your rent can go up. These are things that are deleterious
when it comes to family formation, and we can certainly get rid of those
things and do things that encourage family formation. You know, you look at
the statistics and even you know, Brookings institutions, some of the more liberal
leaning places will readily admit that the data shows that if you have traditional family
mother, father, and children, the outcome for the children is considerably better
than with some of these alternative forms. But there's a big push now for
the alternative forms. Hollywood in particular, ridicules the traditional family and you know,
holds up alternative lifestyles and sexuality as the thing that you should be desirous
of and if you can become a victim, wow, you hit the gold
nugget. So you know, this is just something. It's a real cultural
or something that we have to understand. Something you have to realize that we
have to participate in it. We can't be observers because you cannot be the
land of the free if you're not the home of the brave, and you
can't be afraid of what people are going to do to you. You have
to get out there and fight. They will do bad things. So if
you just sit there and let them, I'm wondering if you've been surprised to
see some of the polling. I personally have been shocked to see some of
the polling of black voters, in particular moving away from Biden, but not
just moving away from Biden, also then moving towards Donald Trump. Donald Trump's
numbers among Black Americans are higher than just about any Republican in recent memory,
Republican presidential candidate in recent memory. Have you been surprised with that, doctor
Carson, And to what do you attribute it? If you've seen those numbers
and think they really reflect shifting sentiments among black voters. I've not been particular
surprised, because you know, when I was a secretary, there were a
number of celebrations I would call them at the White House where we had hundreds
of black, particularly young black people, and they were just over the top
enthusiastic about Donald Trump. So of course you didn't hear about that on CNN.
You didn't hear about that in the MSNBC. They would never have put
anything like that on television. But you know, black people are just like
everybody else. They have eyes and ears and a brain, and they can
see that when Trump was there, they were much better off. Their wages
were higher, there was less unemployment. You know, efforts were made to
bring into line the sentences for various types of infractions so that it was not
unfair to one group and fair to another group. HBC used didn't have to
come begging every year. Opportunity zones encourage the flow of capital and too dilapidated
areas, And it wasn't just federal money, it was private money. And
people saw that they were just much better off. They had money to buy
food, buy gas for their cars. And also, the thing about Trump
that's appealing is you don't have to wonder what he's thinking. You know,
you know what he's thinking immediately, and you know he says what he feels.
And people find that refreshing, particularly when you're a traditional politician. Yeah,
I'm even creous about that because I would imagine, just based on experience
in the workplace, that it makes life a lot easier in meetings, it
makes life a lot easier in general when the president is direct like that exactly,
And I hope it encourages other people to just start being straightforward. Also,
they try to say that he's very divisive and hateful, but it's listening
to Biden. That's where you see all the hate. You know, the
mega this and the mega that needs a people that are come. You don't
hear that coming out of Trump's Now. He talks about specific individuals who cause
problems, but you know, he doesn't categorize the large groups of people that
way. Are they? Is all the lawfair against Donald Trump? Would you
consider that part of the broader culture war? Because when people think of culture
war, you know, they think about things like protecting life from the pro
abortion side. They think about, you know, things like sex and gender
and marriage and family and faith. But this lawfair is it seems because maybe
it's because we're so polarized right now, but against Donald Trump, it seems
like it does come from a place of just cultural disdain for him. What
do you think about that, doctor Carson, Well, you know they know
that Donald Trump has been there before. He knows where the dead bodies are,
and you know, he knows where the rottenness is, and he's going
to do what he can do, not necessarily against individuals, but to create
a more trustworthy and sanitory environment than the government. So their very existence,
the existence of the administrative state, is threatened by him. And also he
just won't buy into all the traditional power grabbing issues that politicians have been into.
You know, most of them have come in made a lot of money.
He, on the other hand, has lost a lot of mind.
He was already as famous as anybody can be, so he didn't need the
thing. He actually wanted to do something for the United States. And I
remember in an interview with Oprah about thirty years ago, she said, Donald,
would you ever run for president? He said, I would have no
desire to do anything like that. The country was going off a cliff,
and it was going off a cliff. And if he hadn't won in twenty
sixteen and Hillary won, and she'd gotten three Supreme Court picks plus set of
federal judges pick, we've been gone already. Do you feel like Donald Trump
understands the severity of the culture War? I mean, somebody who was early
to endorse gay marriage and gay rights, although now is definitely you know,
Betsy de Voss's Education secretary, who took some really necessary steps when it came
to Title nine. Are you confident that a second Trump term, and maybe
you've spoken with him about some of the stuff, a second Trump term would
truly carry the banner of the cause that you write about in this book,
Winning the Culture War. Yeah. Well, you know, he's more about
allowing people to live the lives that they want to live and not have fair
with you know, it's not so much that he's pro gay merrit as he
is let people do what they want to do, and I'm not going to
interfere as a government official. And I think that's a very reasonable type of
position to take. You. I find my basis for my opposition to gay
marriage in my belief system, which I find in the Bible, states very
clearly that God considers those things an abomination. But it doesn't mean that I
have to go after those people. Just means that it's not something that I
would necessarily be pushing. Sure, yeah, absolutely. Do you think the
Republican Party? Sometimes it seems like the Republican Party is stuck in the past,
it doesn't quite get these issues yet. And in other times it seems
like the Republican Party is totally on board with, you know, fighting the
cultural war, Winning the Culture War. What's your assessment of the GOP,
Doctor Carson, do you feel like Republican leaders across the country, especially in
Washington, are ready to fight this, understand the gravity of fighting this,
or do you wish you do? You still wish you saw a little bit
more from them. I would like to see a lot more from them.
No, the Republicans don't understand the power of unity. You've got to learn
how to put your little pet peeve aside and work together. That's what the
Democrats have done very effectively. You know, they don't all agree, but
when it comes to important votes, important things, they stick together like glue,
and it gives them a great deal more power. The Republicans have got
to understand that if we don't stick together and we allow the leftists to prevail,
they are going to arrange things in such a way that you will never
be able to gain power again. That is their objective. That's why they
treat Donald Trump the way they do, and that's why they will treat everybody
else that way if they have power and the ability to do so. Fairness
justice means nothing to them because they see themselves as righteous and just like the
jihadist, if you're the righteous the others are infidels and you can do anything
you want to them. Did you leave Washington You're doing so much work right
now. Did you leave Washington optimistic about the future? Did you leave Washington
disenchanted? I mean, you came into Washington understanding all of the problems with
the way our government is running. You understood the problems in our culture,
but having sort of seen it from the inside, were you more or less
hopeful by the time you left the administration? And even just as you've thought
about thought back down that whole experience. In the year since leaving, I'm
an materrnial optimist. And you know, although it wasn't necessarily always fun working
in that cesspool, I saw a lot of things that encouraged me. You
know. For instance, there was a group of twenty young people from Ohio
who had aged out of foster care, and they told us about what was
going on with twenty thousand aging out of foster care every year, a quarter
of them ending up homeless, a larger amount of that ending up in even
worse situations than being homeless. And you know, we got together with the
careers, the politicals and their careers together and formulated the Foster used the Independence
program and we're giving out grants in less than four months. People say the
government can't do things. When we work together, it's amazing what we can
do. So I'm optimistic that with the right kind of leadership and people being
truly informed, the American people don't know that they're being played like pawns on
a pawn game. They don't realize that. Are you familiar with the Congressional
record of January tenth, nineteen sixty three. I don't think I am,
doctor Garson. Go look it up. Congressman Herlong from Florida ran into the
Congressional record the forty five goals of Communism in America and how we've fundamentally changed
this into a different type of society, and as things like gaining control of
the educational system, the teacher unions so that you could indoctrinate the kids,
the media. There was a big emphasis on the media and on Hollywood so
that you could and intimate people's opinions and minds, making sexual perversion normal and
healthy, destroying the nuclear family, particularly the relationship between parents and children.
I mean, the list goes on and on. It's very impressive. This
is over sixty years ago. A lot of people think what we're seeing is
of recent origin. This has been a long term plan, and it's the
reason that Kushchev said to Eisenhower sixty years ago, your grandchildren's children will live
under our system. You know, we think we won the Cold War,
but they are long term planners, and we have to recognize that we're being
played, and particularly the division in our society on the basis of race,
age, income, gender, politics, religion, dividing us on every area
so that you can weaken us and be able to I think there's a tendency
of many to a one world type government. What stands in the way of
that the United States of America and what we stand for. And you can't
take us down militarily, but you can take us down from inside. And
I think this is a long term plan and it's being executed very well,
and it will succeed unless we understand what's going on and stand against it.
I wonder your thoughts on this question of secularization and how important it is to
these overall trends of our culture kind of crumbling in front of us. Why
did or why is secular leftism taking route you know, why is it that
Marxists, as you say, are having success changing the course of American society
and culture. Even as you say, you know, there's so many people
around the country who vote based on their economic interests, who vote based on
common sense, and who still are still have common sense in the United States.
Why is it that so many of these secular progressive policies have found success
in some of the American people and across so many of our institutions. It's
called indoctrination. And if you go back and look at that Congressional record,
there's a significant amountment about getting God out of everything, getting God out of
our schools, out of our daily lives. Because Marxism does not succeed unless
the people look to the government as their savior. You certainly don't want anything
competing with that. And you look at our Judeo Christian values and the things
that they taught us, like love your neighbor, not hate your neighbor,
of cancer your neighbor, if they have a different yard sign, you can
see those things. They're antithetical to each other. So they've been working on
it for a long time, utilizing the media, utilizing Hoghwood. Those are
sort of their great, big tools to make people conform. And again,
the reason I wrote this book is I want people to see what the forces
are and what they're trying to do. And a lot of times that people
can actually visualize their enemy, they become much more effective in their fight against
it, Doctor Carson, Is there a particular founder, one of the founding
fathers you find yourself gravitating towards for their particular wisdom any more than the others
these days? Are there any books that you find yourself pouring through as you
reflect on these issues most well? I think one of the heroic figures for
me never became the president, but incredibly wise was Benjamin Franklin. You know,
he was an inventor, he was a writer. He used a pseudonym
so that he wouldn't be found out. But he had such a great amount
of perspective. And during the last Continental Congressional meeting, when the whole thing
was about to dissolve, he stood up in front of the whole assembly.
He was eighty one years old, and he said, gentlemen, stop,
let's get down on our knees and let's seek wisdom from the all mighty.
And they all knelt down and prayed, and they stopped squabbling and they put
together our constitution. That kind of leadership, that kind of wisdom, just
amazing, and I'm glad we shared the same first name. Doctor Ben Carson
is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and the author of the
new book The Perilous Fight, Overcoming Our Culture's War on the American Family.
Doctor Carson, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much. You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Emily Kashinski, culture editor here at The Federalist. We
will be back soon with more. Until then, be the lovers of freedom
and anxious for the fray. I heard the fame boy ser reason, and
then it faded away.