Dr. Ben Carson on 'Black Lives Matter,' Planned Parenthood
Republican presidential candidate on 'Your World'
This is a rush transcript from "Your World," August 12, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: I also want you to be aware -- we were talking about Donald Trump -- that not all GOP presidential candidates are controversial.
In fact, this next guy, if you had to win just a popularity and a likability contest, he would probably come out on top. Dr. Ben Carson scoring some major debating points in polls that have come to light since the big debate. Right now, he's not only in the top five, but when asked who do you like the most, he and Marco Rubio are almost like co-prom kings.
I don't know whether Dr. Ben Carson would be flattered by that, but he's here with me now.
Doctor, good to have you.
BEN CARSON, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, good to be back, Neil.
CAVUTO: You're a prom king, I think.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: But they like you. And you did a great job in the debate, and particularly at the end of the debate with some rather funny comments.
CARSON: It was fun.
CAVUTO: How do you feel about that? Because now you are getting to be in the big, big leagues here. You're not just sort of an asterisk. You are in that main group.
CARSON: Well, it says a lot about the American people and their listen and cut through all the crap, because, you know...
CAVUTO: Boy, you and Trump with that word. But go ahead.
(LAUGHTER)
CARSON: Well, you know, all of the pundits say, ah, don't pay attention to this guy. He can't raise any money, can't put together a national campaign. He doesn't know anything except neurosurgery.
CAVUTO: Well, they say you are a neurosurgeon. You are a genius, a brainiac. But...
CARSON: Yes, but they try to say you are an idiot savant. That's the only thing you have got.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: I built a career on it, Doctor.
But you also talk about how you don't try -- even though you're a prominent African-American candidate, you don't make that your end-all and be-all issue. Now, you were in Harlem today, and to hear some in the African- American press and the mainstream press say it, you are not reaching out to that vote, you're not distinguishing yourself for that vote, and you are letting young black men down.
What do you say?
CARSON: I would say simply listen to what I have said before, what I have written about, and what I have done. And that would belie that quite significantly.
CAVUTO: How so?
CARSON: Because, you know, my wife and I have spent a lot of time in the black community building things up, building reading rooms. Even here in Harlem, we have built a reading room.
And we target primarily Title I schools, where kids come from homes with not many books. They go through school with not much of a library, and sometimes no library. And we put these places in that no kid could pass up. And they really develop a love for reading. and if you get somebody to love reading, you change the trajectory of their life.
CAVUTO: But you are not much of a braggart, Doctor. And I only say that because good politicians are.
But then they create a narrative for you that belies what you just said. The Washington Post said of you: "Carson's insistence that racial matters amount almost to nuisance thoughts and pointless exercises and distractions can sound like deep denial and, at worse, like a willful effort to blame black America for its own problems."
CARSON: Well, that's their interpretation or the narrative that they want to put out.
In no way have I said the things that they say. But what I have said is let's put the emphasis in the right place. When it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement, let's find the solutions. Yes, we all agree that black lives matter. But we are not going to get anywhere by sitting there pointing fingers at each other.
CAVUTO: What do you think of what happened to Bernie Sanders the other night? He was shouted down with the Black Lives Matter crowd, and he ended up -- he was unable to speak. Donald Trump then criticized him for essentially being a wimp for not speaking out, speaking up, staying there.
CARSON: Well, there are too many people fighting for attention here.
But, again...
CAVUTO: Would you have stayed there if you were shouted down?
CARSON: I don't know. I really don't know. It depends on what the circumstances were, what the security arrangements were, et cetera.
CAVUTO: When you hear Black Lives Matter, Doctor, how do you answer that, because other candidates have said all lives matter?
CARSON: Well, I would say, for a young black male in a major city in America, the number one cause of death is homicide.
And the vast majority of those homicides are occurring at the hands of other black males. You look at the number of black babies that are being aborted. Do those lives matter? I think they matter a lot. So, you know, we need to be looking at the whole spectrum of how do we save those lives, and, more importantly, how do we improve the quality of those lives, because we only have 330 million people in this country.
China and India have a billion. We have to compete with them. We have to develop all of our lives, every single one of them.
CAVUTO: What did you make of this recent poll that showed that eight in 10 African-Americans, particularly young men, believe the police are more likely to use force against them than do whites?
CARSON: You know, they may well be correct.
But here's the problem. You take policemen who have some fear, and in many cases legitimate fear, and you take the African-American community, who in some cases have fear, and you put those two together, and they both have fear and loathing of each other, you are likely to have a terrible situation occur.
It's relationships that resolve that issue. And, therefore, we need to introduce these people, the police officers into the communities early on, not to take the place of parental guidance, but so that the unfamiliarity that breeds fear and prejudice disappears. You react very differently to somebody when you are not afraid of them.
CAVUTO: You know, Doctor, I was thinking -- and as a doctor, what you thought of Marco Rubio's line in the debate that even in cases of rape and incest, he would be against aborting that child.
CARSON: Well, in cases of rape and incest, I would hope that they would very quickly avail themselves of emergency room.
And in the emergency room, they have the ability to administer, you know, RU-486, other possibilities, before you have a developing fetus.
Now, I have to agree that, you know...
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: But that is -- that is the point of conception. Do you see that as life, Doctor?
CARSON: Certainly once the heart starts beating, certainly at that point.
I mean, we -- this is something that we need to come to accommodation. And, you know, if we are willing to open up the discussion, both sides, I think we can come to accommodation. We will never come to accommodation as long as we get off in our respective corners and say absolutely not. And...
CAVUTO: Well, that came up with the whole Planned Parenthood thing, right, and the videos, Doctor, and I know many of your colleagues have said shut it down, shut the whole thing down, defund it, close it.
I think Donald Trump drew a line there saying, the abortion stuff, by all means, shut down, but he said, paraphrasing here, Doctor, does a lot of good for a lot of women, a lot of families, et cetera.
Do you draw the line? Do you think there are some things that Planned Parenthood does good and should remain viable?
CARSON: Well, certainly, women's health issues are important.
There are a lot of women's health clinics that don't engage in abortion, by the way, so by no means is it a do-or-die situation. But, no, I believe that abortion and paying for abortion with federal funding, when so many people are against it, is just not the right thing to do.
CAVUTO: All right.
But for Planned Parenthood itself, because Planned Parenthood says none of the tax dollars go to fund abortion, on these tapes, do you wonder how they're -- some might -- many of -- make money off of it, there is no way of knowing it right now. What we do know is it is a controversial group, but Democrats have seized on Republicans' concerns about Planned Parenthood as being a war on women, that you are out to get women.
CARSON: Yes.
Well, maybe I'm not objective when it comes to Planned Parenthood. But, you know, I know who Margaret Sanger is, and I know that she believed in eugenics, and that she wasn't particularly enamored with black people. And one of the reasons that you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find way to control that population.
And I think people should go back and read about Margaret Sanger, who founded this police, a woman who Hillary Clinton, by the way, says that she admires. Look and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about her.
CAVUTO: That she was for targeting certain races, right.
(CROSSTALK)
CARSON: Yes.
CAVUTO: As you continue and with future debates, Doctor, the pressure is now more on you, because you have risen in the polls, because you have become such a prominent figure.
You used to be considered just an afterthought, curious candidate. I don't think people are saying that now. Do you feel pressure then to like hit the books and hit every single foreign capital, every single economic issue, go through baseball cards and just get immersed in all these details?
CARSON: I am extraordinarily ready to discuss foreign policy and economic policy with anybody on that stage right now.
And that's only going to get better as time goes on.
CAVUTO: What do you think of all the Trump dust-up? Things have settled. But do you like him? Do you -- last time you were here, you said, yes, I would consider him a running mate.
CARSON: Well, we know each other, and we live in the same proximity and we see each other. And he is one of the most accommodating, nice people outside of that political setting that you will possibly ever want to meet.
CAVUTO: Now, we have got a poll out from a rival news network, just out now, Doctor. You are second in Iowa to Donald Trump. You have moved ahead of Scott Walker. They are really aiming for you now.
CARSON: They are welcome to. The nice thing is, they are going to have to make up stuff.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: They are good at finding a lot of stuff, you know?
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: Did you have any controversies in the seventh or eighth grade that you want to share now?
CARSON: Well, I did get in this fight with this...
(CROSSTALK)
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Doctor, very good seeing you again.
CARSON: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
CAVUTO: Thank you very, very much.
CARSON: Thank you, Neil.
CAVUTO: You could also be a comedy writer with some of the stuff you were saying there.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Dr. Ben Carson in the middle of all of this.
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