Dr. Ben Carson, a top supporter of President-elect Trump throughout the presidential campaign, on Monday was named Trump’s nominee to be secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development after extensive talk about whether he would agree to work in the administration.
“I feel that I can make a significant contribution particularly by strengthening communities that are most in need,” Carson said in a statement released by Trump’s transition team. “We have much work to do in enhancing every aspect of our nation and ensuring that our nation’s housing needs are met.”
The former presidential candidate is set to take over in January for former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro and, in the process, potentially end President Obama’s housing diversity rule, which he has opposed. Carson would also be in charge of the federal government’s anti-poverty programs, many of which he has criticized.
In an April 2015 op-ed for the Washington Times, Carson took direct issue with the diversity rule, which is an attempt to implement the 1968 Fair Housing Act. The 1968 law prohibited the discrimination against people involved in the sale or renting of housing based on nationality, sex, race or religion.
“It is true that the Fair Housing Act and other laws have greatly reduced explicit discrimination in housing, but significant disparities in housing availability and quality persist,” Carson wrote. “To address them, the Obama administration’s new agency rules rely on a tortured reading of the Fair Housing laws to empower the Department of Housing and Urban Development to ‘affirmatively promote’ fair housing, even in the absence of explicit discrimination.”
Carson also argued that the rule is nothing more than “government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality” and would end up making things worse in the end.
Carson was one of Trump’s highest profile supporters after ending his own presidential bid in March, and began actively campaigning for the president-elect throughout the final months of the race.
However, since Trump’s victory more than three weeks ago, Carson has been engaged in a game of back-and-forth with the administration about a possible post.
After news broke two weeks ago that Trump had offered Carson to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Carson’s team pushed back on reports, saying that no specific offer was made but that he had the opportunity to do whatever he wanted in a Trump administration. They also cited Carson’s lack of bureaucratic experience, which Carson argued wasn’t a factor.
“The table was wide open,” top aide Armstrong Williams told the Washington Examiner at the time. Williams said Carson was never offered a specific position, but was told by Trump, “Tell us what you want, Ben.”
The famed neurosurgeon responded by saying that he would be “praying” over his decision over the Thanksgiving holiday, and decided to go nearly silent in the ensuing days before the announcement.
