JOHN DICKERSON INTERVIEWS
DR. BEN CARSON

NOVEMBER 29, 2015

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JOHN DICKERSON: Good morning and welcome to Face the Nation. I'm John Dickerson. Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson is in the Middle East this weekend and joins us from Amman Jordan. Dr. Carson, I want to ask you, you've visited the Syrian refugee camp, what did you learn there?
 
BEN CARSON: First of all I was very impressed by the outpouring of humanitarian effort on behalf of the Jordanians. This has been going on for many decades, but they have really reached out to the Syrians in a very big way. And I had an opportunity to talk with many of the Syrians and that was very eye opening. Asking them what is their main desire is. What is their main desire? And their main desire is to be repatriated in their homeland. And I said what kinds of things can a nation like the United States do to help?

And there was a pretty uniform answer on that. And that was they can support the efforts of the Jordanians. The Jordanians have done a yeoman's job in terms of putting up these camps. But the reason that the camps are not full is because they are not supported by the international community.

It seems like everybody in the international community is spending more time saying "How can we bring refugees here?" rather than "How can we support a facility that is already in place that the refugees are finding perfectly fine when it's adequately funded?"
 
JOHN DICKERSON: So your assessment visiting there is that Jordan could take all the refugees. It's just a matter of getting more financial resources? 
 
BEN CARSON: I think Jordan could take a lot more of the refugees than they're taking right now. I don't see any reason quite frankly that some of the other nations in the area shouldn't also be asked to do it so that you don't have to go through a big cultural change with them.

And in terms of money, when I looked at the refugee camps in Jordan, there's about a three billion shortfall annually. That's how much money we spent last year on Halloween candy. I mean, is it something that can be done? You know if we bring ten thousand or twenty-five thousand of them to the united states, that's not solving the problem. That's a little band aid that makes a few people say "Hey, we're good guys."

That's not what we want to do. We want to actually solve the problem.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: So make the link between Halloween and the refugees for me, are you talking about a national fundraising drive or?
 
BEN CARSON: I'm talking about in terms of the amount of money that it would take to fund the short fall. You know our country has done a great job in terms of providing support. But I believe that you know the entire international community could easily make up that 3 billion dollar shortfall. My point in comparing it to the Halloween candy is to say that you know this is not a big deal.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: I'd like to ask you about the war on ISIS, you have a new advertisement out that's entitled "winning versus whining", who's whining?
 
BEN CARSON: My point in that advertisement, is let's not sit here and talk about what we can't do and why this is too difficult. Instead, we have some terrific military intelligence and advisors who know how to get the job done. Let's ask them - what do they need in order to get the job done and then let's make a decision. Are we going to give it to them?
 
JOHN DICKERSON: Do you think -
 
BEN CARSON: Or are we just going to keep -
 
JOHN DICKERSON: Are those advisers not being consulted?
 
BEN CARSON: Whether they're being consulted or not is irrelevant if we're not paying attention to what they're saying.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: What do you think that they are saying if not being paid attention to?
 
BEN CARSON: If we're trying to micromanage them, I think they're being micromanaged.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: In what specific way?
 
BEN CARSON: All you need to do is go out and talk to a number of the generals who have retired in many cases prematurely. They can give you a very good answer to what I'm just talking about.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: But do you have an answer to that question?
 
BEN CARSON: My answer is for you to go out and talk to them and ask them specifically. You want to know the exact reasons why we're not winning and ask what advice has been given and how it has been ignored. I would suggest that you talk to them.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: Ok I'd like to ask you about a domestic political event. There's what some people see political element to it. That's a shooting at a Planned Parenthood location in Colorado Springs. Some abortion rights supporters have said that the rhetoric has led to that kind of violence, what's your view on that?
 
BEN CARSON: There is no question that you know hateful rhetoric no matter which side it comes from - right or left - is something that is detrimental to our society. This has been a big problem. Our strength in this country has traditionally been in our unity. And we are allowing all kinds of circumstances to divide us and make us hateful toward each other. And the rhetoric is extremely immature, divisive and is not helpful when you have outside forces - global Islamic radical jihadists who want to destroy us. Why would we be doing that to ourselves? We at some point have got to become more mature. No question the hateful rhetoric exacerbates the situation. And we should be doing all we can to engage in intelligent, civil discussion about our differences. That's how we solve problems. We don't ever solve them with hateful rhetoric.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: Should those who oppose abortion rights tone down their rhetoric?
 
BEN CARSON: I think both sides should tone down their rhetoric and engage in civil discussion.
 
JOHN DICKERSON: Alright, Dr. Ben Carson, thanks so much for joining us.
 
BEN CARSON: Thank you.
 
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