Donald Trump’s latest move in African American outreach is to appoint a surgeon who thinks he’s qualified to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development because he has “spent a lot of time” in the inner city. And, oh yeah, he happens to oppose banning segregation.
November 25, 2016

Donald Trump’s latest move in African American outreach is to appoint a surgeon who thinks he’s qualified to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development because he has “spent a lot of time” in the inner city. And, oh yeah, he happens to oppose banning segregation.

Yesterday, Trump tweeted that he’s “seriously considering” Carson for HUD because “he’s a greatly talented person who loves people!”

Later, Carson – who spent his life working in medicine until he decided to run for president – revealed that he’s not only interested in the HUD job, he thinks he’s fully qualified. This, despite having said one week ago that he doesn’t think he’s qualified to run a federal agency.

CARSON: Our inner cities are in terrible shape, and they definitely need some real attention. There have been so many promises made over the last several decades, and nothing has been done. So, it certainly is something that has been a long term interest of mine. And I’ll be thinking and praying about it over the weekend.

[..]

CAVUTO: What would steer you to take a job for which a lot of folks say, "Hey, you have these ample medical degrees and one of the nation’s top neurosurgeons, what do you know about doing this?”

CARSON: Well, I know that I grew up in the inner city and have spent a lot of time there and have dealt with a lot of patients from that area, and recognize that we can not have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities, and we have to get beyond the promises and start really doing something. And also, the amount of corruption and graft and things that have - shell games that are played, we need to get rid of all that stuff and start operating things in an efficient and effective way.

There’s absolutely no reason to believe that Carson would operate a big federal department efficiently or effectively. But Cavuto didn’t question Carson’s “qualifications.”

Think Progress reports that Carson’s appointment would be a “bonanza for banks” as he wants to gut anti-discrimination laws.

Carson, however, has not been completely silent on housing policy. In 2015, he signed an op-ed in the Washington Times critical of the Obama administration’s efforts to desegregate neighborhoods. In that op-ed, Carson also criticized a Supreme Court decision which left intact a key provision of the federal law banning housing discrimination.

[…]

During the Obama administration, the Justice Department used [anti-discrimination lawsuits] to score major settlements against banks engaged in discriminatory practices. DOJ, for example, entered into a $335 million settlement with the mortgage lender Countrywide after discovering that the lender “charged higher fees and rates to more than 200,000 minority borrowers across the country than to white borrowers who posed the same credit risk.”

Cavuto didn’t mention that, either.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump “appealed” to African Americans by asking, “What the hell do you have to lose?” by voting for him. Plenty, as it turns out.

Not surprisingly, Carson loved that pitch.

Watch the man who could destroy HUD above, from the November 22, 2016 Your World.

Crossposted at News Hounds.
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