Ben Carson

Ben Carson was Trump’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 2017 to 2021 and is the author of the HUD chapter in Project 2025. His organization, the American Cornerstone Institute, is a Project 2025 Advisory Board member.

Under Carson’s leadership at HUD, the Trump administration proposed eliminating funding that ensures public housing agencies have capital to address pressing issues. HUD also proposed to reduce housing benefits by increasing rents and imposed stricter work requirements on those who receive federal housing assistance. The Trump Administration revised an existing HUD rule, making it harder to prove discrimination in housing. And, in 2019, the Trump Administration released its first formal plan to overhaul the housing finance system and remove Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government conservatorship.

During his time at HUD, Carson also faced criticism for his family’s involvement in department operations, particularly his son Ben Carson Jr. and daughter-in-law Merlynn Carson, who allegedly attempted to use their influence to advance their own business interests. And, according to the Economist “the governing principle at HUD is to take whatever the Obama administration was doing, and do the opposite.”

In his Project 2025 chapter, Carson calls for:

– Increasing the mortgage insurance premium on all products with above 20-year terms.

– Allowing public land and housing to be sold to the private market “and put to greater economic use.”

– Immediately ending the Biden Administration’s PAVE policies, a set of guidelines that remove racial and ethnic biases from home appraisals.

– Repealing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation, increasing barriers to federally funded housing for protected and underrepresented groups.

– Eliminating the Housing Supply Fund, which provides grants to states and localities to reduce affordable housing barriers.

In another chapter, Project 2025 also calls for:

– Privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac increasing mortgage costs for homeowners.

– Restricting the role of the Federal Reserve in stabilizing the economy during housing and other economic crises.

In response to Trump’s criminal trials, Carson has been a staunch defender of Trump, claiming that “[t]he judicial system has been weaponized to go after Presidents for political gain” and urging people to donate to Trump following the verdict in the hush-money trial. Carson has also promoted conspiracy theories related to election fraud, claiming that there were voting irregularities in the 2020 election and stating that he will only accept the results of the 2024 election “if it’s done in a fair and transparent way.” He has continued to say there were “voting irregularities” in the 2020 election, despite a lack of evidence to support such claims.

Carson has also made many controversial claims. He has compared abortion to slavery, stating that “During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. Anything that they chose to do. And, you know, what if the abolitionist had said, you know, ‘I don’t believe in slavery. I think it’s wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do’? Where would we be?” Carson has also compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality, stating: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” In a 2015 interview, Carson claimed that “poverty is really more of a choice than anything else,” sparking outrage and accusations of lacking empathy for those living in poverty.

In 2021, after leaving his position at HUD, Carson founded the American Cornerstone Institute (ACI), a right-wing think tank that, in its words, “supplies pro-America, pro-life, and pro-family” materials to fight the “left’s saturation of America’s schools and the media with their own twisted lessons about America, faith, gender, and sexuality.” ACI runs a “Little Patriots” program to indoctrinate children and “Common Sense Solutions” that portray its view of America’s founding documents. In 2022, ACI’s annual revenue was approximately $8.5 million, which includes a salary of $350,000 for Carson and about a million dollars for nine other employees.

ACI signed onto a coalition letter, featuring numerous religious right and Leonard Leo-tied organizations opposing Kentanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The letter claimed that “Roe not only denigrates our legal system, but also authorizes our nation’s radical policy of abortion on demand until birth.” ACI filed amicus briefs in Dobbs v. Jackson, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. ACI is a Project 2025 advisory board member.

Note: Individuals included in the “Supply Chain” risk scenario would have decision-making purview over a regulatory space that greatly influences supply chains in key industries (e.g. agriculture, healthcare, technology, consumer goods), or whose influence on domestic or foreign policy could greatly disrupt aspects of supply chains, including shipping and logistics, trade agreements, and labor availability.

This profile has been updated.