Thread: Trump taps former campaign rival Carson as housing secretary

Trump taps former campaign rival Carson as housing secretary



JULIE PACE
Associated Press December 5, 2016
417 Comments

• This combination of three 2016 file photos shows, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, left, speaking at a ceremony at the Gen. Andres Rodriguez school in Asuncion, Paraguay, on June 29, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, center, talking with President Barack Obama at White House in Washington, U.S.A. on Nov. 10, and China's President Xi Jinping arriving at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, on Nov. 22. With Trump's latest tweets touching on sensitive issues, China must decide how to handle an incoming American president who relishes confrontation and whose online statements appear to foreshadow shifts in foreign policy. China awoke Monday, Dec. 5, to criticism from Trump on Twitter, days after it responded to his telephone conversation with Taiwan's president by accusing the Taiwanese of playing a "little trick" on Trump. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Luis Hidalgo, Files) " style="border-style: none; vertical-align: bottom; position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; margin: auto; max-height: 100%; max-width: 100%; width: auto;">
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This combination of three 2016 file photos shows, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, left, speaking at a ceremony at the Gen. Andres Rodriguez school in Asuncion, Paraguay, on June 29, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, center, talking with President Barack Obama at White House in Washington, U.S.A. on Nov. 10, and China's President Xi Jinping arriving at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, on Nov. 22. With Trump's latest tweets touching on sensitive issues, China must decide how to handle an incoming American president who relishes confrontation and whose online statements appear to foreshadow shifts in foreign policy. China awoke Monday, Dec. 5, to criticism from Trump on Twitter, days after it responded to his telephone conversation with Taiwan's president by accusing the Taiwanese of playing a "little trick" on Trump. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Luis Hidalgo, Files)
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump, moving to complete formation of his Cabinet and decide other key posts, chose former campaign rival Ben Carson on Monday to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Trump's decision, announced by his transition office, comes as the real estate mogul continues a series of interviews, meetings with aides and other deliberations aimed at forming his administration. He announced several Cabinet appointees last week.

In a statement, Trump said he was "thrilled to nominate" Carson, describing the retired neurosurgeon as having "a brilliant mind" and saying he "is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities."

Carson had been coy about joining the new administration, saying shortly after Trump's election victory that he wasn't certain he'd fit into a Cabinet-style role. The discussion at that time centered on speculation that Carson might be selected to head the sprawling Department of Health and Human Services.

"Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country," Trump said, "and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans."

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Carson had no credentials for the job and was a "disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice."

She said the country deserves someone with "relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters."

Carson was among the 16 Republican candidates who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. He was a favorite of religious conservatives and a strong fundraiser, but his team burned through money quickly and he failed to win any of the early primary contests.

Trump treated Carson harshly during the primary, saying he had a "pathological temper." Still, Carson quickly endorsed Trump after he dropped out of the contest.

As a Trump supporter, Carson was both loyal and critical. He conceded that Trump had "major defects" and said at one point that he would have preferred a scenario other than Trump winning the Republican primary.

Last week, Trump announced that he planned to nominate former Goldman Sachs executive Steven Mnuchin as his Treasury secretary and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross to lead the Commerce Department. He chose Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education and Elaine Chao, the wife of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, to be transportation secretary. Trump also has turned to retired Marine Gen. James Mattis to be secretary of defense.

He now has expanded his pool of candidates for secretary of state, raising a question about whether former CIA Director David Petraeus' guilty plea for leaking classified information disqualifies him to serve as the nation's top diplomat.

Trump's aides had confirmed that the president-elect had settled on four finalists for the post. But over the weekend, two people close to the transition told The Associated Press that Trump is moving away from two of the four: former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.

That would leave Petraeus as a top contender, along with Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Both people close to the transition said Trump's prolonged decision-making process has left the door open to other options. Among other possibilities, one official says is Jon Huntsman, a former Republican Utah governor who also served as the ambassador to China and speaks Mandarin.

The people close to the transition spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process publicly.

Carson has often recounted his childhood as the son of a single mother in inner-city Detroit in his books and motivational speeches. In his 1996 autobiography "Gifted Hands," Carson wrote of the humiliation he felt using food stamps from his mom to pay for bread and milk, and said how he began to excel at school only after receiving a free pair of glasses that allowed him to see the lessons written on chalk boards.

Carson has not said whether his family ever lived in federally funded housing or received Section 8 subsidies to help pay rent. But as a political figure he has criticized such public assistance programs for creating "dependency" on the government among low-income minorities.

With the help of financial aid and scholarships, Carson attended Yale University and the University of Michigan Medical School before being the first African-American named as the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore. There he garnered national acclaim for directing the first surgery to separate twins connected at the back of the head.

Carson's rise to political prominence began with a 2013 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he gave a withering critique of the modern welfare state and the nation's overall direction while President Barack Obama was seated just feet away. During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, Carson's inspirational life story, Christian faith and anti-establishment message briefly catapulted him last year ahead of Trump and other rivals in opinion polls.

But his success on the campaign trail quickly crumbled amid questions about whether elements of his rags-to-riches autobiography were exaggerated or fabricated — including a purported childhood fit of rage in which he tried to stab his best friend in the belly only to be foiled by a belt buckle. Carson's business dealings also faced scrutiny, including his ties to a wealthy Pittsburgh dentist whom he helped avoid prison time for felony health care fraud.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-tap...111946945.html

I think Ben Carson would work very hard to do a great job better utilizing HUD programs to redevelop the inner cities. Lots can be done with these funds and programs but too little has been achieved all these years with little to show for it in my opinion given the great cost of I heard today $50 billion a year. Trump completely renovated the Old Post Office for $200 million, created jobs, raised up an area, and this was fancy fancy stuff. So we should see beautiful safe lovely areas all across our inner cities achieved with HUD money. Yet, we don't. At least not in the inner cities.

So, I think Ben Carson knows what is needed and for him to have someone like Trump as President to work with, together they can achieve enormous benefits for our inner cities with this $50 billion a year in HUD money and then both the residents of the inner cities and the taxpayers who funded can actually see proud results from the expenditures, bring in jobs, raise the incomes, so at some point in the not too distant future, we wouldn't need as much HUD money because the low income areas are now middle income areas.

Raising people up up and away from poverty, that is what HUD was supposed to do, not trap them in slumlord drug, crime and kill areas which is about all that's been accomplished with HUD to date.

Carson for housing secretary.

Mr. Trump selected Mr. Carson, a formal rival for the Republican presidential nomination, to be his secretary of housing and urban development, despite Mr. Carson’s lack of experience in housing policy.

The president-elect said:

“Ben Carson has a brilliant mind and is passionate about strengthening communities and families within those communities. We have talked at length about my urban renewal agenda and our message of economic revival, very much including our inner cities. Ben shares my optimism about the future of our country and is part of ensuring that this is a presidency representing all Americans. He is a tough competitor and never gives up.”

The housing mortgage market has been largely under federal control since the Great Recession and the collapse of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been under federal receivership for nearly a decade.

Mr. Trump said during the campaign that America’s inner cities were wastelands of violence and depravity. Mr. Carson, if confirmed, will have his work cut out for him.

Mr. Carson’s spokesman has said that the former neurosurgeon did not have the management experience to run an entire federal agency.

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the minority leader, was not pleased with news of the appointment:

“Dr. Ben Carson is a disconcerting and disturbingly unqualified choice to lead a department as complex and consequential as Housing and Urban Development.

“Our country deserves a HUD secretary with the relevant experience to protect the rights of homeowners and renters, particularly in low income and minority communities, and to ensure that everyone in our country can have access to safe and affordable housing without facing discrimination or homelessness.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us...ransition.html

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LOL!!! Oh Nancy, what is wrong with you? Are you afraid Ben is going to kick illegal aliens, drug cartels, drug runners, and gangs out of HUD housing?!!! Well, I for one certainly hope he does just that. What's going on in many of these HUD housing programs is a disgrace. What these HUD property owners are collecting from the government off the backs of US taxpayers for low-quality housing is outrageous. I bet Valerie Jarrett is peeing in her pants right now because her abuse of this program in Chicago is a national scandal. So yes, rest assured, Nancy, Ben and Donald will be shining a big bright light onto HUD and changing it for the better, the much much better. NO doubt about that.

Ben Carson Is Trump’s Pick for HUD Secretary, for Some Terrible Reason

By Eric Levitz


Meritocracy.Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon, hawker of “cancer curing” vitamins, amateur Egyptologist, and former presidential candidate.

He is also, apparently, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

There are a few reasons why Carson is an odd choice for that post. For one thing, he has absolutely no experience in urban development, aside from having spent his developing years in an urban environment. For another, his personal assistant declared him unfit to run a federal agency last week.

“Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency,” Armstrong Williams told the Hill. “The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”

Finally, and most important, Ben Carson believes that there is a broad scientific consensus that aliens built the pyramids — but that this consensus is wrong, because the biblical Joseph built the pyramids with help from God. (He also believes that they built said pyramids not as tombs, but as vessels for storing grain.)

My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain. And various scientists have said, “Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how they were” — you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you.

That Trump appointed Carson despite these facts suggests that his preference for empowering loyalists over qualified professionals knows no bounds.

Although, if Trump sees HUD primarily as a tool for enriching well-connected real-estate developers, Carson’s combination of loyalty and ignorance may make him uniquely “qualified” for the position.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...ul-reason.html

Well, relax Eric Levitz, Ben will have a big boss who knows more about housing and development in the inner cities than anyone in the country. His name is Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States and he can stretch a penny farther than anyone who has ever been involved with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Maybe that's what's got you worried. All your fat cat friend's gravy train off poor people and indebtedness US taxpayers will have to find a way to feed themselves elsewhere.

Just wonder what is going to happen to all those HUD loans if a Pres. Trump actually makes good on his promises about illegals.

During the Bush administration, I read two articles by two different HUD officials that stated if illegals were deported, HUD would collapse due to the sheer numbers of illegals that had HUD homes loans.

How did that happen?

I also remember speaking with a real estate agent who told me how busy they were, processing 18 sales a day to illegals. At the time, it never occurred to me they were getting HUD loans. It may not have been the case. What got my attention was the fact this was not a big metropolitan area, but a small town, and that many illegals were buying houses.

nntrixie, HUD spans much wider than inner cities. Communities of most any size can apply for HUD loans through State Housing Authorities that funnel out a lot of the HUD money. That's probably why not as much has been accomplished in urban areas as the original program intended.

HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...an_Development

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

HUD’s mission is to create strong, sustainable, inclusive communities and quality affordable homes for all. HUD is working to strengthen the housing market to bolster the economy and protect consumers; meet the need for quality affordable rental homes; utilize housing as a platform for improving quality of life; build inclusive and sustainable communities free from discrimination; and transform the way HUD does business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...an_Development

FHA Loans are part of HUD and are available to first time homebuyers. HUD isn't just rentals.

[PDF]Not a us citizen? Not a problem. - National Association of Realtors

www.realtor.org/sites/default/files/.../global-perspectives-2014-06-not-a-us-citizen.pdf
loosened. In fact, some institutions view lending to foreign nationals as a growth market. ... (See Non-citizen Requirements Under FHA Guidelines on page 7.).