#183 Dr. Ben Carson - Neuralink, God’s Hand in Neuroscience and Human Consciousness

Dr. Ben Carson is an American retired neurosurgeon, author, and politician who served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2017 to 2021. As a pioneering pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Carson performed groundbreaking surgeries, including the first successful separation of conjoined twins joined at the back of the head, the first successful neurosurgical procedure on a fetus inside the womb, and developed new methods to treat brain-stem tumors. He retired from medicine in 2013 after a distinguished career that included over 100 neurosurgical publications and numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As HUD Secretary, Carson oversaw initiatives such as the expansion of the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, the establishment of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, and efforts to reduce veteran homelessness. Following his departure from HUD, Carson founded the American Cornerstone Institute (ACI) in 2021, a conservative think tank centered around advancing policies that promote faith, liberty, community, and life. He also founded Carson Scholars and Little Patriots Learning to directly support excellence in education for young thinkers. Carson continues to be an influential figure in conservative politics and public policy discussions. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://amac.us/srs https://bubsnaturals.com/shawn https://americanfinancing.net/srs | 866-781-8900 NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781 8900 for details about credit costs and terms. https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://helixsleep.com/srs https://preparewithshawn.com https://rocketmoney.com/srs https://shopify.com/srs https://hexclad.com/srs #hexcladpartner This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. Ben Carson Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/realbencarson X - https://x.com/RealBenCarson American Cornerstone Institute - https://americancornerstone.org Little Patriots Learning - https://littlepatriotslearning.com Carson Scholars -https://carsonscholars.org YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWET2F0fctmIwnGUP_8FMw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  Dr. Ben Carson, welcome to the show.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  Thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for having me.

• 1:11Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, it's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this for a long time and I can't believe you're actually here. This is really surreal for me. I've been watching and following what you're doing for a long time and I just, I love everything you've got going on and everything you've done and I think everything you stand for, so.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Well, we love, we love what you do and the in-depth shows that you do and your service to the country as a Navy SEAL.

• 1:42Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you. Thank you. Everybody starts with an introduction and so here we go.

• 1:51Shawn Ryan?

  Dr. Ben Carson, you were raised in poverty in a single-parent home in Detroit, Michigan. You earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School specializing in neurosurgery. At age 33, you became the youngest major division director in John Hopkins Hospital's history, is the head of pediatric neurosurgery. You gained international recognition for your groundbreaking surgical innovations, notably for leading the first successful separation of conjoined twins. You are the author of numerous scientific articles and books, including Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, which was later turned into a television movie.

• 2:35Shawn Ryan?

  You received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008, the highest civilian honor in the United States. You ran for president in 2016 and were later appointed by President Trump as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, serving from 2017 to 2021. You are a husband to Candy Carson since 1975, 50 years in July, as we spoke downstairs. Congratulations.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Thank you, half a century.

• 3:04Shawn Ryan?

  The father of three sons, and most importantly, a Christian. So I'm just gonna, 50 years, I mean, that's amazing. And so, you know, kinda to start it off, I just, what would you say the secret to a successful marriage is?

• 3:26Speaker 03

  I would say marrying the right person. That's the secret to a successful marriage. You know, making sure that this is somebody that you really like, that you really have fun with. You know, so many people, they get married on the basis of physical attraction or something of that nature, and that wanes with time, and all of a sudden, you don't have anything in common. And that's a problem.

• 3:59Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. I've literally just talked about that as well, just a few days ago. So it's great to have your affirmation on that. And I 100% agree with that.

• 4:16Shawn Ryan?

  So before we get to in the weeds, I want to do, I want to do a full life story on you. So I hope you're ready for the long haul here.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Not a problem.

• 4:25Shawn Ryan?

  But, but I want to start off just a couple of things. We have a Patreon account. There's, it's a subscription account. They've been with me since the very beginning when I started this show in the attic of my house and it was just me and my wife. And, and then we moved to this studio. The team grew and it's, it's really all because of them. And so we've built quite the community over there. And one of the things that I offer them is they get to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Roy G. It's a good question. "Dr. Carson, what actionable steps can be taken to address the hospital, insurance, and pharmaceutical system that has made healthcare costs outrageously expensive?

• 5:11Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not looking for a pie in the sky idea, but rather a realistic solution that could actually be enacted within this administration."

• 5:21Speaker 03

  Well, as everybody knows, cost of medical care is skyrocketing. It's much greater in this country than it is anywhere else in the world. And yet we don't have the best outcomes. We don't have the best longevity. So it makes you question the efficiency of our system. We spend $13,100 per capita per year in this country on healthcare.

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Concierge practices, just to put that in perspective, costs generally five to ten thousand dollars.

• 6:01Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  It is really a problem. What do you need for good healthcare? A patient, a healthcare provider, that's all you need. Along came the middle man to facilitate the relationship. And now the middle man is the major entity controlling both of the other two. That's where all the money is going. So what we need to do is have a system that takes us back to the healthcare provider and the patient. And we already actually have that. It's called health savings accounts. And if you have, if you just modify that system a little bit,

• 6:48Speaker 03

  it would be very effective. And when I say modify it, allow, for instance, if a husband is having a procedure or something done, and he short five hundred dollars, his wife can give it to him out of hers. Or his brother, or his cousin, or his uncle, or his aunt. And that way, every family becomes their own insurance company. Interestingly enough. And you also modify it so that when a person dies, their health savings account can be given to one of their family members.

• 7:29Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  So over the course of a generation or two, almost every family would have an enormous amount of power. And they would be able to control their own medical care that way. And also, they're going to be very interested in Uncle Joe, who's smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. They're going to be hiding those cigarettes.

• 7:58Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point. That's a good point.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  That would save us an enormous amount of money. And, you know, the obvious question is, well, what about the people, you know, who are not employed, whose employer can't put money into their health savings account? What about them? Well, where does the money come from? That thirteen thousand one hundred dollars comes from the government. You just divert it and you wouldn't have to put as much into people's savings account. And it rolls over from year to year. So if you don't have any major thing done for several years, you've got a heck of a lot of money.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  And for many people, it would be the first time they ever owned anything. And they learn how to manage money. They learn economics. It would make the medical system very transparent. It would have to be because people would want to know how much something costs.

• 9:02Speaker 03

  You're not going to keep using the system if you know it's coming out of your health savings account. And your doctor's not going to say, "Let's just do another CAT scan to see how things are." Unless he really wants one because it's coming out of your account. And you're not going to let him do that. You're going to, "Why do you want to do another scan?" And it's sort of like when you go to a hotel and you put your credit card down and the attendant says, "You don't need that. All your expenses are taken care of." "Oh, well, let me see the end dining, end room dining menu." As opposed to, "Where's the nearest McDonald's?"

• 9:47Shawn Ryan?

  Has this been introduced anywhere?

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Uh, not, not really. I've talked to Bobby Kennedy about it. He's very interested.

• 9:56Shawn Ryan?

  He was receptive?

• 9:57Speaker 03

  He's very receptive.

• 10:02Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. That sounds...

• 10:06Speaker 03

  It would completely change our system. And it would cost us a heck of a lot less money. And it would bring transparency to the system, which would bring its own set of improvements.

• 10:23Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 10:27Shawn Ryan?

  I hope that happens.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  I hope it does too. You know, particularly with all the pressure that we have on the system with illegals who've come in.

• 10:43Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think there's a real possibility that that could get pushed through?

• 10:47Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 10:51Speaker 03

  Depends on how logic. Now, you know, there would be people who are very much entrenched in this system who make a lot of money out of this. Who would not be too happy about it, including some of the insurance companies.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Because they would see their source of enormous profits disappearing.

• 11:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but that would be one hell of a fight.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  It will be, but it's a concept that people can understand pretty easily.

• 11:30Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. Doesn't sound complicated at all.

• 11:36Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  It's not complicated. We've made it complicated because the more complex we can make it, the easier it is to see people want to continue scamming people.

• 11:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 11:55Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 11:58Shawn Ryan?

  I can't think of a better response for that question. Um, that just blew me away. I can't wait to get this out already. Um, so everybody on the show gets a gift. I'm always like really hesitant to give this out to doctors.

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Oh dear, what has happened?

• 12:19Shawn Ryan?

  Those are, uh, Vicuance Elite gummy bears. So, yeah. Made here in the USA, they taste amazing.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Well, thank you.

• 12:29Shawn Ryan?

  Probably be outlawed by the, uh, Maha movement here in a couple of months, so...

• 12:33Speaker 03

  Better get them while you can.

• 12:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you better get them while you can, cause, uh... Yeah. Um... Who knows, they might come raiding your house to confiscate them.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  They may.

• 12:44Shawn Ryan?

  Let's dig into your life story, starting right at the very beginning. Where did you grow up?

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Grew up in Detroit, and, uh... I thought my early life was kind of idyllic. Uh, we lived in one of those, uh, GI homes, 700 square feet. Very small, about the size of my master bedroom now. But, uh...

• 13:10Speaker 03

  For me, it was ideal. There was a little lawn, and, you know, we had a...

• 13:19Speaker 03

  A family, my father, my mother, my brother.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  And, uh, there was a school that was in walking distance. And it all seemed okay, until it fell apart. When I was eight years old, and my parents got divorced. Now, I had noticed that my father wasn't around a lot, but he was a factory worker and a part-time preacher. So, you know, he would hide behind the part-time preacher part. But it turned out he had another family.

• 13:55Shawn Ryan?

  He had another family?

• 13:56Speaker 03

  He had another family. And that's why he wasn't around a lot. And that's what resulted in the divorce.

• 14:06Shawn Ryan?

  How big was the other family?

• 14:08Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't, I don't know. I didn't know much about the other family.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Still don't know much about them. Uh... But that resulted in the divorce.

• 14:22Shawn Ryan?

  What do you know about the other family?

• 14:26Speaker 03

  They're, they're in Detroit. Um... I know one of the... Women in the other family has told people that she's my half-sister. I've never met her. But she is. Um...

• 14:45Speaker 03

  But that was devastating. And we didn't have a place to live for a while. But some relatives in Boston took us in. One of my mother's older sisters and her husband.

• 15:03Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you live in the interim?

• 15:07Speaker 03

  Anyplace where we could find shelter. Any relatives or friends of my mother's. But.

• 15:16Shawn Ryan?

  How long did that go on?

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Just a matter of weeks before we found. Before we found shelter in Boston. And.

• 15:29Shawn Ryan?

  Was your brother, is your brother older or younger than you?

• 15:32Speaker 03

  Older. Two years older.

• 15:35Shawn Ryan?

  So, single mom, a 10-year-old and an eight-year-old. Just bouncing around Detroit, trying to figure out, trying to find shelter.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  Trying to find out where to be. But.

• 15:48Shawn Ryan?

  What were you thinking at eight years old?

• 15:54Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 16:29Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake-up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  Everything was an adventure.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  That was eight years ago. And I didn't really, fully understand what was going on, to be honest with you. I thought we were just, you know,

• 17:49Speaker 03

  having different adventures.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  And, you know, it was something going to Boston on the train.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  And, but it was a very different neighborhood.

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Multi-family dwellings, rats and roaches, broken glass all over the place, gangs, murders. Both of my older cousins, that we adored, were killed. That's the kind of place that it was. And, you know, somehow, we made it through all of that. My mother was working all the time because she didn't like the concept of being dependent on the government. And she worked as a domestic, going from place to place.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  But her goal was to get us back to Detroit.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  And to be independent. And after a couple of years, she had saved enough to be able to do that.

• 19:04Speaker 03

  And, you know, it was still a multifamily dwelling, but, and there were still rats and roaches and dilapidated housing. But nevertheless, she was independent. We were independent at that time. And the major story there is that

• 19:26Speaker 03

  both my brother and I were terrible students. Really? We were at the bottom of the class and kids made fun of us all the time.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  And, you know, I didn't like it very much, but I tried to act like it didn't bother me. But it did bother me quite a bit. But it bothered my mother more than it bothered me. And she just didn't know what to do. And she was convinced that we were gonna have the same kind of life that she had. You know, menial jobs and not realizing the American dream.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  And she prayed for wisdom. And God gave it to her. At least in her opinion, my brother and I didn't think it was wise at all because it was to turn off the TV and make us read books. And we were not happy at all. In today's world, we probably would have called Social Services owner. But we had to read those books. And the first book that I read...

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Was about a beaver. It was called Chip the Dam Builder. And it was a great book. I enjoyed that book so much that I started reading other animal books. I read every animal book in the Detroit Public Libraries. And then I started reading about plants and then I started reading about rocks. Because we live right by the railroad tracks. You get so used to the trains coming by. They make a lot of noise, you don't even hear it anymore. But there are all these rocks. And I would collect the rocks in a box and bring them home. And read about them. And pretty soon I could identify virtually any rock, where it came from, how it was formed.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Still in the fifth grade, still the dummy. Nobody knew about this project of mine. And then one day, Mr. Jake, the fifth grade science teacher, walked in. He held this big, black, shiny rock. He says, can anybody tell me what this is? Well, I never raised my hand. I never answered questions. So I waited for one of the other students and nobody, nobody raised their hand. And I said, wow, this is my big chance. And I raised my hand. And Mr. Jake was shocked. And all my classmates were turning around. Benny Carson's got his hand up. Oh, this is gonna be good.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  And Mr. Jake said, Benny? And I said, Mr. Jake, that's obsidian. And there was silence in the room. Because nobody knew whether it was right or wrong. And they didn't know whether they should be impressed or whether they should be laughing. And Mr. Jake said, that's right. It is obsidian. And I said, obsidian is formed after volcanic eruption. And the lava flows out, it hits the water, does a supercooling process. The elements coalesce, the surface glades. So everybody was staring at me.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  What in the world is going on here? But I was the most amazed person. Because it dawned on me at that moment. I said, you're no dummy at all. The reason you knew the answer is because you've been reading the books. I said, aren't you tired of being called the dummy? I said, what if you read books about all your subjects? From that point forward, you never saw me without a book. If I had five minutes, I was reading a book. I went from being called a dummy to being called a bookworm. And within the space of a year and a half, I went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class. Wow. All the students who used to call me dummy were coming to me saying,

• 23:33Speaker 03

  Benny, Benny, how do you work this problem? And I would say, sit at my feet, youngster, while I instruct you. I was probably a little obnoxious.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  But it really changed the trajectory of my life significantly. But the other thing,

• 23:56Speaker 03

  probably just as importantly, is I hated poverty. You know, some people hate rats. Some people hate snakes and bugs. I hated poverty. And, you know, it really stung acutely. The teacher would sometimes say, everybody bring a nickel tomorrow because we're gonna have popcorn balls. And they were beautifully wrapped in these cellophane wrappings of different colors, and they looked so good. And they only cost a nickel. Some kids actually would bring a dollar to the school and buy a whole bag of them.

• 24:45Speaker 03

  But, you know, I never had a popcorn ball

• 24:50Speaker 03

  because we never had an extra nickel. That's how bad things were. But I just hated poverty until I started reading those books, until I started reading about successful people, surgeons, scientists, explorers, and entrepreneurs, inventors.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  And as I read their stories, I began to realize that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  And the person who determines your future is you.

• 25:33Speaker 03

  And then poverty didn't bother me because I knew that it was only temporary and that I had the ability to change it.

• 25:43Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when you came to this?

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Uh, I would have been about ten or eleven at that point.

• 25:51Shawn Ryan?

  You figured it out at ten or eleven years old?

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  And I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I've always been drawn toward medicine. I used to love hearing the stories about missionary doctors who traveled all over the world at great personal expense and danger to bring not only physical but mental and spiritual health to people. And I, I actually had determined when I was eight years old that I was going to be a missionary doctor. Even when I was a terrible student, I was going to be a missionary doctor. And, um,

• 26:41Speaker 03

  that was really my dream until I was thirteen. At age thirteen, having grown up in dire poverty, I decided I'd rather be rich. So missionary doctor was out.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  And psychiatrist was in. Because, uh, you know, on TV psychiatrists seemed like rich people. They lived in the mansions and drove Jaguars and had these big plush offices. And all they had to do is talk to crazy people all day. And it seemed like I was doing that anyway. So I said, wow, this is going to work out really well. My brother knew about my interest in becoming a psychiatrist. And he had a job. And he bought me a subscription to Psychology Today.

• 27:38Speaker 03

  And I started reading it and I became the local shrink in high school. Everybody would bring me their problems. I would sit them down, stroke my chin, say, "Tell me about your mama." And I was all gung ho. I majored in psychology at Yale. Had interesting professors like Anna Freud, who was the daughter of Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis. I was really heading down that pathway and by the time I got to medical school, I was convinced I was going to be a psychiatrist. The rest of medicine really didn't interest me. Certainly, surgery was not even on my radar at all.

• 28:23Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, let's go back a little bit. So you go right into Yale?

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Went into Yale from Southwestern High School in inner-city Detroit. That was a major culture shock, I must say. It was actually the first year that Yale admitted women, so there were a lot of changes going on on the campus. But it was the first time I'd, you know, seen real china and real silver and these beautiful paintings on the mahogany walls and Oriental rugs. I mean, it was a big change from what I was used to.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  And, you know, I was kind of enjoying it and having fun and really wasn't concentrating on my studies very much.

• 29:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what did your, I mean, must have a really proud mom.

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. She was, she was very proud. My brother had gone into the Navy.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  And he subsequently came out of the Navy, went to University of Michigan,

• 29:47Speaker 03

  majored in engineering. And he ultimately started working in the aerospace industry.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  So he became the rocket scientist and I became the brain surgeon. But it all worked out.

• 30:07Shawn Ryan?

  Let's rewind a little bit more. Something happened at age 14.

• 30:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 30:13Shawn Ryan?

  It weren't just a bookworm.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a major change in my life. You know, I, I had a quick temper. I would get very angry. And when I got angry, I became irrational.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  I would just want to hurt people. I remember one time there was a, a boy at school. I was in the third grade and we got in a fight and I hit him with a baseball bat and I got in a lot of trouble.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  And I, I went home and I wanted to kill myself.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Cause I didn't want to face, you know, the teachers and stuff back at school.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  And I remember my brother was there. I said, do you know where the rat poison is? And he said, why do you need rat poison? And I said, I need to kill myself.

• 31:20Shawn Ryan?

  In third grade?

• 31:23Speaker 03

  And he said, you know, I know a much better way to kill yourself than rat poison. I said, yeah. He said, yeah. What you do is you drink water until you burst. And that'll kill you.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  So I started drinking and drinking. And I just had to pee so much, I forgot about killing myself.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  But I remember there was another time. One of the neighbors had hit me with a pebble, really. It didn't hurt at all. And I was just incensed that he would dare hit me. And I picked up a large rock, hurled it out, broke his glasses, almost put his eye out. He had to get medical treatment. And another time I was in school. And one of the boys tried to close my locker. I didn't want it closed. I struck him in the forehead with my fist. Unfortunately, still had the lock in my hand.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Put a three-inch gash in his forehead.

• 32:42Shawn Ryan?

  Geez.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  He was bleeding all over the place. I almost got kicked out of school for that one. And then my mother was trying to get me to wear something I didn't want to wear. It picked up my hammer and went to hit her in the head with it. Fortunately, my brother caught it from behind. Now, other than that, I was a pretty good kid. But you can see how that temper can get you in a lot of trouble. At age 14, another kid angered me. Changed the channel that I was involved with. I had a large camping knife.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  I tried to stab him in the abdomen.

• 33:30Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 33:32Speaker 03

  And fortunately, under his clothing, he had a large metal belt buckle. And the knife blade struck it with such force that it broke. And he fled in terror. But I was probably more horrified than he was because I realized at that moment how out of control I was, that I was trying to kill somebody over nothing. And I locked myself in the bathroom.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  And I just started contemplating my life. And I realized that with a temper like that, my options were jail, reform school, or the grave. None of those appealed to me. And I just started praying. I said, "Lord, you gotta help me. I can't control my temper." I had read about behavioral modification in psychology today, but that's a very expensive proposition. We didn't have any money. And I said, "Lord, you have to change me."

• 34:43Speaker 03

  There was a Bible, and I picked it up and turned to the Book of Proverbs and started reading. And there were all these verses about anger, like Proverbs 1919, that says, "There's no point getting an angry man out of trouble because he's just gonna get right back into it." And, but they were encouraging verses like Proverbs 1632, "Mighty is the man who can control his temper than the man who can conquer a city." And there were also all these verses about fools, and they all seemed to fit the description of me.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  And I stayed in that bathroom for three hours, praying and reading and contemplating. And during that time, it came to me that the reason that I was angry all the time is because I was selfish. Because it was always about me. Me, my, and I. Somebody did this to me. They're in my space. I want this. And I said, "If you learn how to take yourself out of the center of the equation..."

• 36:00Speaker 03

  And insert someone else. It will solve your problem. And it did. That was the last day I had an angry heart burst. Never had one since then.

• 36:12Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 36:14Speaker 03

  But it was because I realized that it was all about me. And to change that would make a huge difference in my life. So that was when I really found God, that day. And I adopted Him not only as my heavenly Father, but as my earthly Father. As the person to go to for everything. And it made a big difference in my life. I did have, perhaps, some unrealistic expectations. Because one of the verses in the book of Proverbs,

• 36:59Speaker 03

  in the 10th chapter, it says, "The expectations of the righteous shall come to be." So when it came time to me to apply to college, I only had enough money to apply to one college. But I wanted to go to Yale. So I applied to Yale as the only college. And I said, "I'll get in because it says the expectation of the righteous." And I'm pretty righteous, so I said, "I should get in." And I did.

• 37:36Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  So that's how I wound up there. But like I said, I was kind of overwhelmed with all the stuff going on there.

• 37:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what did your mom, what did your mom think when you, when you got accepted?

• 37:53Speaker 03

  I think she kind of expected that I would.

• 37:56Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz she knew what a good student I was. I mean, I was getting As and everything, had all these awards. And so she said, "Why wouldn't you get an A?" But I don't know that she fully understood the significance of that. But she was happy about it. And but by the end of the first semester, I was in trouble. Because I was treating Yale like I treated Southwestern High School.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  At Southwestern High School, I didn't have to study. Or I could study in study hall and get an A on the test to next. I mean, it was just too easy. And I figured I could do that. At Yale also, it wasn't working. And I was failing freshman chemistry. And you can't fail chemistry and get into medical school. So I remember the night before the final exam, I just said, "Lord, you know, all these years I thought I was gonna be a doctor.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  And I thought you wanted me to be one, but if I fail chemistry, I'm not gonna be a doctor. So would you actually show me what it is that you really want me to do? Or alternatively and preferably, work a miracle?" Now, the chemistry professor had said, either because he was a very good guy or because he was very sadistic. He said, "Anybody who's failing the course, I will give you double credit on your final exam." So you could not only pass, you could actually get a good grade.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  And give you sort of that last hope before you go down. I think it was sadistic. But I was gonna study all night. I took that Stinko and Pain Chemistry book. I was gonna go through the whole thing that night. Obviously, that didn't work. I fell asleep. And I dreamed I was in this auditorium. I was the only one there. And there was a nebulous figure working out chemistry problems on the blackboard. And I awakened early that morning. And that dream was so vivid.

• 40:51Speaker 03

  I went and I looked up everything that was in the dream in the textbook. And when I went to take the tests the next day, I opened the book. I heard the music from the Twilight Zone. Because I recognized the first problem as one of the ones I dreamed about.

• 41:08Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 41:09Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And I turned the page and I recognized the next one and the next one and the next one. I aced the exam. Because I'd just seen it the night before. And I just said, "Lord, you'll never have to do this for me again. I will become a serious student." And I did. But then, when I got to medical school, I had another problem. Because I did terribly on the first set of comprehensive exams. To the point that my advisor, the person who was supposed to help me get through,

• 41:52Speaker 03

  suggested that I drop out of medical school. Said, "You're not cut out for medicine." I was devastated. Since I was eight years old, I wanted to be a doctor. I finally get to medical school. And the person who was supposed to help me says, "Drop out." You can imagine the devastation. I went back to my apartment. And of course, I prayed. And I said, "Lord, help me to understand what I should do at this point." And I started thinking. I said, "What kind of courses have you always struggled in?"

• 42:35Speaker 03

  And I realized that I struggled in courses where I listened to a lot of boring lectures. Because I don't get anything out of boring lectures. Zero, nothing. It was a waste of my time. And I was sitting in six hours' worth of boring lectures every day. And what kind of courses do you do well? And I do well in courses where I do a lot of reading. So I made an executive decision to skip the boring lectures and to spend that time reading. The rest of medical school was a snap after that.

• 43:09Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 43:10Speaker 03

  And years later, when I was back at my medical school as the commencement speaker, I was looking for that counselor. Because I was going to tell them he wasn't cut out to be a counselor. But all of that, you know, helped me, obviously, in a very big way along my career. But I'll go back to thinking I was going to be a psychiatrist. Then I started listening to some of the lectures by the neurosurgeons.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  And the incredible stuff that they were able to do with the brain and the spinal cord. And I was just so taken with it. And I started moving in that direction. That's what I want to do. Several people discouraged me. They said, "That's not the right field for you." At that time, there had been eight black neurosurgeons in the world. But, you know, the Lord does not distribute talent based on race. I continued to migrate in that direction. And that's how I ended up in neurosurgery. And I started out as an adult neurosurgeon.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  But I very soon started migrating toward pediatrics because...

• 44:44Speaker 03

  I just love kids. And the potential that exists in kids. And also with kids, you can do things that you can't do in adults because of plasticity. The fact that all the neurons haven't decided what they want to do when they grow up yet. So you can do more radical things and it can still turn out okay.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  And, you know, the rest is history.

• 45:22Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of radical things?

• 45:25Speaker 03

  Things like hemispherectomies, where you take out half the brain to cure certain types of intractable seizures.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  The first one that I did was in 1985. A little girl from Denver. She said, "I'm from Denverado." She was from Denver, Colorado.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  She was having up to 130 seizures every day. They had tried everything to stop them, even putting her into a pinocerone coma for two weeks. But as soon as they lifted the coma, the seizures started back up again. And the head of pediatric neurology at Hopkins is a much older fellow than myself.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  He said, "Would you consider doing a hemispherectomy?" It's an operation that had really been first done by Walter Dandy

• 46:32Speaker 03

  in about 1930.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  And some others had tried it.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  And it was dramatically successful in stopping some of the seizure activity. But the complication, the morbidity and the mortality was so high that it had fallen out of favor.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  So I read up on all of this, and I said, you know, a lot of these things that caused these people to die are things that we know how to deal with now that maybe they didn't know how to deal with in 1930, or 1940, or 1950. And so, maybe if we apply some of the modern techniques that we have, we can do this successfully. And that first operation on the little girl from Denver was a spectacular success. She was very photogenic, as was her mother, and got a lot of attention.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  That brought in a lot of calls from other people from around the country who had children, who had these intractable seizures. And we did several hemispherectomies. Got a lot of attention. That was probably my first 15 minutes of fame. You see, everybody gets 15 minutes of fame. That was my 15 minutes of fame. But then the next year, one of the obstetricians came to me.

• 48:18Shawn Ryan?

  How old are you at this point?

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Uh, 34. 34 years old. And one of the obstetricians said, Ben, I have this pregnant woman with twins, but one of the twins has a severe case of hydrocephalus, water on her brain, and the head is expanding so quickly, it's going to cause her to go into premature labor, and both babies are going to be lost because their lungs are not mature enough to survive. And he said, "Do you think you could do an operation?" By that time, I had sort of started developing a reputation

• 49:03Speaker 03

  as doing unusual things to save children. He said, "Do you think you could come up with an operation where you could operate on the hydrocephalic twin while it's still in the mother's womb? And I know you can't save that one, but we could save the other baby who's perfectly normal."

• 49:26Speaker 03

  And, you know, there've been a lot of talk about intrauterine surgery. New England Journal had had an article about how it would be a very desirable thing, but that we weren't quite ready for that yet.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  But these babies needed it now. They couldn't wait until we were ready for it. So I contacted a neurosurgeon in Philadelphia who'd been doing some experimental work on sheep with intrauterine surgery. And I said, "Bob, do you think we could modify your technique and make it available for humans in a week?"

• 50:13Speaker 03

  And we went to work on it, and we were ready to do it. But we couldn't do it at Hopkins. The ethics committee said, "No, this is too far out. You just can't do this."

• 50:31Speaker 03

  So I went to one of the community hospitals and did it there.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  And could see the head of the hydrocephalic baby shrink right on the screen.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  And bought several more weeks of gestation. And when the babies were actually born, it was a big national news story.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  And everybody was saying, "Wow, this is incredible." But then there was a lot of criticism too. People saying, "We were ethically not ready to do something like this yet." And some of the experts were critical. That is, until it became clear that not only was the normal baby okay, but the hydrocephalic baby was okay too. And then they were saying, "Oh, I would have done that too under those circumstances." But that was my second 15 minutes of fame.

• 51:30Shawn Ryan?

  What was the... I don't understand. What was the criticism?

• 51:34Speaker 03

  The criticism was that this was too risky.

• 51:38Shawn Ryan?

  What should have, what were they implying should have been done?

• 51:42Speaker 03

  Well, you know, I don't think they had a logical thing. They didn't have a logical alternative. Because I engaged in something I call the BWA, a best-worst analysis. In fact, I wrote a book called Take the Risk, in which I explained the BWA. But it involves four questions. What's the best thing that happens if I do this? What's the worst thing that happens if I do this? What's the best thing that happens if I don't do this? What's the worst thing that happens if I don't do this? And when you ask those four questions in this situation,

• 52:23Speaker 03

  there's only one option that works. You gotta do it. And, you know, I've asked those four questions about a lot of things during my neurosurgery career. And some people say, Carson's a hot dog, you know, he'll do anything. But it's not true. It's done based on those four questions. And a lot of lives have been saved that perhaps would not have been saved by asking those questions.

• 53:03Shawn Ryan?

  Did a lot of people follow in those footsteps?

• 53:07Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. Yeah, hemisphorectomies are routinely done now.

• 53:16Speaker 03

  And at the time, when I started doing them, they had completely fallen out of favor. I remember some medical students from Harvard called and...

• 53:29Speaker 03

  They said, "The professors here said that we had misunderstood, that you were not taking out half the brain to cure intractable seizure." I said, "Your professors are wrong." But it's done everywhere now, at virtually all children's hospitals. Some of the techniques have been improved upon and modified, as they are in all surgical procedures. But, yeah, that's... And intrauterine surgery is done commonly in many pediatric hospitals now.

• 54:06Shawn Ryan?

  How did you respond to the criticism? Did it affect you at all?

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Amazingly, you know, I don't really care too much about criticism. I would only care about what God thinks. And even in my political career, you know, when people have been critical, I don't really pay much attention to it. As long as God is not critical, I'm good.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 56:02Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Doctor, we're back from the break. Uh, I wanted to kind of dig in a little bit about, what was it like preparing for the, for the surgery with the twins? It was a 22-hour operation?

• 56:18Speaker 03

  It was a very interesting, uh, time in my life. I got very interested in conjoined twins, just out of the blue. And I was saying, "Why is it that the mortality rate is so high? Why did they all die?" And I concluded, after much research, that it was exsanguination, or bleeding to death. And I said, "You know, this is 1987. We, we should be able to keep people from bleeding to death. We must have some techniques." Started thinking about it, and, you know, I talked to the chief of cardiothoracic surgery, who was a friend, and I said,

• 57:03Speaker 03

  "Bruce, what do you guys do? You operate on little babies' hearts. How do you keep them from bleeding to death?" And he told me about hypothermic arrest. You cool the body temperature, you pump all the blood out, stop the hearts. And, uh, you can operate for up to an hour before you have to restore the circulation.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Without major damage to the brain. And I've started thinking, I said, "What if, when you got to the part of a separation, where they all bleed to death, you put them in hypothermic arrest? And then you're able to get them separated, and repair the vessels, pump the blood back in, start the heart up?"

• 57:57Speaker 03

  And then I said, "Why am I thinking about this? I'm never gonna see a set of twins like that." A few weeks later, there they were.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  And, you know, the question was being asked of various surgical teams in different places around the world. "Do you have a solution?" Because the parents didn't want to take the European solution, which was to choose which one should live and to sacrifice the other one.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  And, you know, I explained, you know, what I had been thinking. And everybody said, "You know, that sounds like it might work."

• 58:47Speaker 03

  And we started having some conferences on it, putting a team together. A few of us actually went over to Germany to examine the twins. And

• 59:03Speaker 03

  we came back and started doing practice sessions, where we would take two dials and stick them together with Velcro, and figure out what had to be done. The nurses designed special drapes that could be used so that when you pull the beds apart, the drapes would fall into place and maintain the sterility of the field. The head nurse and neuro became my psychiatrist. You know, I would lay down on the couch and close my eyes. And she would say, "Tell me what you need. Tell me what instrument." She put together all the packs.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  And it was really quite, quite a team effort. You know, I got so much credit for doing it, but I couldn't have done it without all those people.

• 59:58Shawn Ryan?

  How many people were involved?

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Uh, the surgical team itself was about seventy people. And, um...

• 1:00:07Shawn Ryan?

  Seventy people?

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Seventy people. And probably one of the, the most interesting things is that, uh, the head of the department, Dr. Long, uh, who had always been a supporter of mine, he, as a resident, you know, he would have these very prominent patients coming from all over the country, all over the world. And, uh, anyone who didn't want me on their case, he would happily show them the door. I remember there was one guy, he said, "I can't have a black person operating on me." And Dr. Long said, "There's the door."

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Uh, he just didn't tolerate any of that kind of foolishness at all. But, uh, as the head of the department, he could have had the right to have done the surgery with me as the assistant, but, uh, he insisted I, I be the primary surgeon and that he would assist.

• 1:01:17Shawn Ryan?

  Back to the twins, that was a, that was a twenty-two hour operation?

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  It was.

• 1:01:24Shawn Ryan?

  Were you operating for twenty-two hours straight?

• 1:01:27Speaker 03

  Uh, for most of it, part of the time, the plastic surgeons were out, uh, involved, but we did the lion's share. But a lot of people say, "Well, how can you stay awake that long?" But you're not going to sleep. It's like being in, in a jungle with a hungry tiger. You're not going to sleep until you get out of there. But, uh, after the operation, I was sitting in my office with one of the other neurosurgeons. We were discussing the case and we both fell asleep in mid-sentence and woke up three hours later. [laughing]

• 1:02:11Shawn Ryan?

  Downstairs, I was having a conversation with her wife and she had brought up the fact that you, you had, how did she word it? Basically, she was saying that you were operating outside of the law.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Outside of what?

• 1:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  Outside of the law.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Outside of the law?

• 1:02:33Shawn Ryan?

  Maybe, maybe in a specific case.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe outside of tradition.

• 1:02:38Shawn Ryan?

  Maybe outside of tradition.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, never, never, never outside of the law.

• 1:02:43Shawn Ryan?

  Outside of legal scope, maybe. I don't, I don't know though.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  No, I don't think that.

• 1:02:49Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know what she's talking about?

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  I don't know what she's talking about.

• 1:02:53Speaker 03

  We certainly did things that were non-traditional and that would, would not be what other people would do.

• 1:03:05Speaker 03

  But that may be what she was talking about.

• 1:03:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we skipped ahead a couple of years, so I want to rewind. Where, where did you first meet your wife, Candy?

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  We were both from Detroit, but we had to go to Yale to meet each other. And...

• 1:03:24Shawn Ryan?

  Your wife was at Yale as well?

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  Yes, she was two years behind me. And I knew that she was a musician from a previous conversation. And the church that I was going to needed an organist. So I said, you know, would you like to come to our church and try out for organ? And she said, I haven't played for a while, but sure.

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  And that didn't work out, but she starts singing in the choir.

• 1:04:07Speaker 03

  And, you know, that fall at Thanksgiving, we both wanted to go back home for Thanksgiving, but neither of us had the money to go back home for Thanksgiving. But the school said, if you will recruit for them, they will pay the expenses if you're going back home. So we were able to go back home on Yale's dime.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  Including their credit cards, so we were able to go out and have dinner and lunch. You know, we kind of discovered that we liked each other. And when it was time to go back, you know, we'd been out late that night, and we had to drive all night to get the car back on time. It was a rental car.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  And fell asleep on Interstate 80 at Youngstown, Ohio, going 90 miles an hour, and awakened by the vibrations of the car as it was going off the road.

• 1:05:25Speaker 03

  And I whipped the wheel, and instead of the car going bouncing down the ravine, it just started spinning like a top. They say, "Before you die, you see a video reel of your life." I did. And figured we were dead. Car stopped

• 1:05:46Speaker 03

  on the lane next to the shoulder, and I could pull off just as an 18-wheeler came bare length there.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  And we just said to each other, "I think the Lord just saved our lives." And He obviously did that for a reason. He's got something for us to do.

• 1:06:08Speaker 03

  And that was our first kiss, and that's when we started going together. And that was on November the 28th, 1972. We celebrate the 28th of every month since then.

• 1:06:23Shawn Ryan?

  Every month since then?

• 1:06:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  What do you guys do to celebrate?

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Uh, we might go out to dinner, or have a special dinner, a special dessert, or just acknowledge the fact that we're still alive.

• 1:06:41Shawn Ryan?

  How many months is that now?

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  Uh, it's been about 600 months.

• 1:06:47Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:06:49Speaker 03

  People would have forgotten about us a long time ago.

• 1:06:56Shawn Ryan?

  When did you decide to get married?

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Uh, we got married in July of 1975. Candy graduated in June of 75. We got married in July 75.

• 1:07:09Shawn Ryan?

  How did you propose?

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  You know, I don't remember specifically. I mean, we always knew that we were gonna get married. It's just, there wasn't really any other consideration.

• 1:07:26Shawn Ryan?

  Did Candy grow up in poverty as well?

• 1:07:29Speaker 03

  Uh, not as extreme as what I grew up in. Uh, you know, her mother was a schoolteacher. Uh, her father had a problem with alcohol. Um, worked in a factory. So, they were lower middle class.

• 1:08:02Shawn Ryan?

  You know, being-

• 1:08:02Speaker 03

  And, and her father died while she was in high school.

• 1:08:06Shawn Ryan?

  While she was in high school?

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever

• 1:08:15Shawn Ryan?

  tried to find your father since eight years old?

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. No, we would occasionally, uh, have interaction with him. The last time I saw him was at my wedding.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  But, uh, you know, we didn't have a lot of contact with him. He refused to pay alimony.

• 1:08:43Speaker 03

  And, you know, my mother would take him to court. He would say he was gonna pay, and then he never would. And she finally just gave up on it and just said, "I'll just work three jobs."

• 1:08:56Shawn Ryan?

  What was the, what was the typical interaction like between you and him?

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Uh, usually relatively brief. But I remember one time he took us to see a, a movie.

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  That kind of thing. Um,

• 1:09:18Speaker 03

  never any prolonged interactions.

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  But, you know, I wasn't angry with him.

• 1:09:28Speaker 03

  You know, I just didn't, for a number of years, understand

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  what the relationship was. I didn't know that... I didn't know about his other family until some years after the divorce. My mother kinda shielded us from that.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  But,

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  you know, even though as a child, I prayed all the time that they would get back together. Later on in life, I understood why God never answered that prayer in the affirmative, because, you know, he was involved with drugs and alcohol and women and things that would not have been a good influence on me, so...

• 1:10:17Shawn Ryan?

  You know, there's a...

• 1:10:22Shawn Ryan?

  There's a lot of kids growing up in poverty and a lot of people stuck in poverty today and... You know, I think, um...

• 1:10:34Shawn Ryan?

  I think a lot of them don't see a way out, or maybe they're never even exposed to

• 1:10:44Shawn Ryan?

  what else is out there, what it could be. And I didn't grow up in poverty, but I have spent a lot of time in the military and contracting for the agency, and it took me to some of the poorest places in the world. And, you know, when...

• 1:11:05Shawn Ryan?

  I've always been very fascinated with how people live and in extreme situations like that, or extreme to me. And so, you know, being in Yemen or Afghanistan and seeing

• 1:11:21Shawn Ryan?

  people that live like it's almost like biblical times or, you know, haven't really evolved much for thousands of years, still living in mud huts, burning trash to keep warm. I mean, they don't really get the snapshot of what, you know, a typical...

• 1:11:43Shawn Ryan?

  What Western life is like. But some of them still make it out. And I think, I mean, I don't know, but I would, I, I, I think it may be the same in, in, in poverty in the US. Maybe they don't get the snapshot of what, they just think this is it. This is how it is. This is what it's like everywhere. And, and is that, is, I mean, is that kind of what it's like?

• 1:12:10Speaker 03

  Uh, I think it's different for different people. It's a matter of perspective. You know, one of the things my mother used to do is, uh, is take us to the homes that she cleaned.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  And they were usually grand homes, beautiful neighborhoods. And then she'd bring us back to where we live and point out the drunk sitting on the corner with a bag drinking out like, like nobody knew what he was doing. And she would say, you have a choice.

• 1:12:51Speaker 03

  Do you rather live there where I work?

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Or on that corner drinking from a bag?

• 1:13:00Speaker 03

  And, you know, she always pointed out those contrasts and the fact that it's your choice.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  It's not, nothing is written in stone that you have to go down one lane or the other. You get to make a choice.

• 1:13:19Speaker 03

  And understanding that, I think, made a huge difference for both myself and my brother. In fact, I always say if, if everybody had my mother, I don't think we'd have any problems.

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  And I think it's so important, you know, for children, no matter where they're born, no matter what their social circumstances, to see other perspectives. You know, one of the things they do, for instance, in New Zealand, which is sort of isolated out there in the ocean, is they require the children in their latter part of high school to go overseas, somewhere to see other parts of the world and how people live.

• 1:14:19Speaker 03

  And the poorest people in the United States live much better than a lot of people in the world. You know, my wife and I have been to 68 countries, and we've lived overseas. And we've seen a lot of stuff. And it does make a big difference.

• 1:14:46Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you live overseas?

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  Australia.

• 1:14:49Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing there?

• 1:14:51Speaker 03

  Well, when I was chief resident in neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, we had the grand opening of the neuroscience center. And since Hopkins is like the Martin birthplace of neurosurgery, all the bigwigs from around the world were there, including one of the bigwigs from Australia. And he took a liking to me and said, "You should come to Australia to be our senior registrar at a major teaching hospital in Western Australia." And I said, "Australia? You gotta be kidding." I didn't say that out loud. That's what I was thinking. And I kind of poo-pooed the idea. And it seemed like every time I turned around, there was somebody saying, "Good day, mate. How you going?"

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  And I just kept running into Australians everywhere. And it seemed like they were really nice people. And every time we turned the TV on, there was a special on about Australia. And I said to Candy, "I think the Lord wants us to go to Australia." So she started doing some research. She discovered that they did have a white-tongued policy, but it was an unofficial policy and it had officially been abolished in 1968. That was 1983. So we said, "Yeah, we're gonna go to Australia." And off we went. Our friends were saying, "You'll be back in three weeks." But little did they know, we only... We didn't have any more money, we couldn't come back.

• 1:16:21Speaker 03

  But, you know, the biggest problem was keeping up with all the dinner limitations. They love Americans. And, uh... But it turned out to be a god thing, because there were only four neurosurgical consultants in all of Western Australia. And once they discovered that I could operate, you know, they left me largely in charge of things at the major teaching hospital and they went out to the private hospitals. And, um, I learned a lot from each one of them. There were things that they taught me that I had not learned at Hopkins. And, um...

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  But I was doing multiple major craniotomies every day. I got an enormous amount of experience doing complex cases. And, um, when I came back to Hopkins, the position opened up for Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Normally, they would go out and get somebody with a lot of gray hair and a big resume. But, uh, you know, Dr. Long said, "Well, Ben is only 33 years old, but he can do everything." So I became Chief Pediatric Neurosurgery at a very young age. And... But I had been prepared for that by going to Australia.

• 1:17:53Shawn Ryan?

  Sixty-eight other countries.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  We have done a lot of traveling.

• 1:18:00Shawn Ryan?

  Mostly vacation, professional life?

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  A combination, a combination of both.

• 1:18:07Shawn Ryan?

  Where's your favorite place?

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  United States of America.

• 1:18:11Shawn Ryan?

  Suck into that.

• 1:18:14Speaker 03

  Probably Australia. I enjoy Australia a lot. We still have friends over there that we communicate with. And they've been over here to visit with us.

• 1:18:29Speaker 03

  But also enjoyed South Africa. I've been there several times.

• 1:18:38Shawn Ryan?

  What brought you to South Africa?

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  Separating twins. We separated a couple of sets of twins in South Africa.

• 1:18:50Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:18:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know, being a neurosurgeon,

• 1:18:58Shawn Ryan?

  what are your thoughts on Neuralink?

• 1:19:02Speaker 03

  Well, Elon Musk is an amazing person. And I think Neuralink has some real potential. Obviously, it's in its infancy right now.

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  But of course, any good thing, we always find a way to pervert it also. So we obviously are going to have to be very careful with the way that we manipulate the human brain. And it's the same thing with virtual reality and AI. Obviously, there are wonderful things that can be done with them. But anytime you have a new technology, people are going to try to use it in nefarious ways in order to enrich themselves. So we just have to be very careful.

• 1:20:02Shawn Ryan?

  What are some ways that you think that...

• 1:20:09Shawn Ryan?

  Neural link could become perverted.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  Militarily, you could program people to be without a conscience and to act without a conscience and to become killing machines. I think that's a real possibility.

• 1:20:40Shawn Ryan?

  How would that work?

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  You would basically be able to control their emotions and tell them what to do. And they would do it without second thoughts about it. And, you know, they could be programmed to steal things, to do a whole bunch of things that people who are morally conscious would not do.

• 1:21:25Shawn Ryan?

  What are some positives?

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  You could create a lot of Mother Teresas. And people who would just be programmed to do good things and to always be looking out, you know, for others. But you could also program people to become math wizards and very proficient at technical things. So, you know, I have mixed feelings about that kind of technology.

• 1:22:11Speaker 03

  Of course, I don't think we even understand the possibilities of what we can do. But things like that, a lot of it will become more apparent as it's starting to be used.

• 1:22:30Shawn Ryan?

  Would you like to see it move forward?

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  I would prefer to see us spend more time cultivating the best of people by bringing them up the right way, having the right influences in their lives, bringing church and morality back, having a revival in our system, encouraging people to prepare themselves academically, creating the can-do attitude in America as opposed to the what can you do attitude. Because I believe that the potential that exists in each human being is absolutely enormous

• 1:23:19Speaker 03

  if it's cultivated the correct way. I think anybody who has a normal brain can do almost anything if that brain is programmed in the appropriate way.

• 1:23:33Shawn Ryan?

  You don't believe in limitations?

• 1:23:36Speaker 03

  Well, there probably are some limitations, but they're nowhere near as low as we place them. And I think you can take a normal child, I think you can make that person into a nuclear physicist. You just have to train them the right way. The brain has the capacity to do that.

• 1:24:07Shawn Ryan?

  Have you looked into some of the stuff that's going on with psychedelic therapy?

• 1:24:15Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I really haven't looked into that.

• 1:24:18Shawn Ryan?

  As far as treating traumatic brain injuries and addictions and... you haven't looked into that?

• 1:24:26Speaker 03

  No, no. I suspect there's probably some interesting things going on there, though. But all they're doing is discovering some of the capacities, the hidden capacities of the brain.

• 1:24:45Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you think?

• 1:24:48Shawn Ryan?

  Why are those hidden capacities coming out during

• 1:24:55Shawn Ryan?

  when people are undergoing a psychedelic experience?

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  Because during those psychedelic experiences, some of the inhibitory forces

• 1:25:07Speaker 03

  that block things from happening are removed.

• 1:25:13Speaker 03

  And you begin to see and experience things that you might otherwise not.

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  Some of which can be quite frightening and some of which can be very pleasant.

• 1:25:32Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any thoughts on, should we move forward with researching that? Or legalizing?

• 1:25:43Speaker 03

  Doesn't really matter what I think about it. They're gonna move forward.

• 1:25:49Speaker 03

  They can't resist.

• 1:25:52Speaker 03

  It's part of our... You know, they say curiosity kill the cat. Well, we got a lot of curiosity and we're just gonna keep moving forward with all of these interventions of the human brain because it's a vast, unexplored territory. It's the reason that I want to go into psychiatry and neurosurgery. Because the brain is one of the last frontiers. I had initially, I toyed a little bit with the idea of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon. And I said, "We know almost everything there is to know already about the heart and the lungs. We know nothing about the brain."

• 1:26:35Speaker 03

  And as a medical student, I said, "You could probably

• 1:26:43Speaker 03

  make significant contributions in neuro. It'd be hard to do that in cardiac."

• 1:26:53Shawn Ryan?

  Where does consciousness live?

• 1:26:57Speaker 03

  Well, it's in the brain.

• 1:27:00Speaker 03

  It's in the human brain.

• 1:27:06Speaker 03

  It is not something that, obviously, we've been able to quantitate or understand completely.

• 1:27:18Speaker 03

  But it is clearly there.

• 1:27:22Speaker 03

  It's at a different level, I think, in human beings than it is in animals.

• 1:27:28Speaker 03

  And I think it's one of the mechanisms that

• 1:27:33Speaker 03

  allows us to communicate with God.

• 1:27:41Speaker 03

  Animals, I don't think necessarily have the ability to do that.

• 1:27:47Speaker 03

  And I don't think that we

• 1:27:51Speaker 03

  utilize our consciousness

• 1:27:55Speaker 03

  anywhere close to its capacity. I think a human brain that was functioning at capacity would be capable of things that are unimaginable to us.

• 1:28:07Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think all consciousness is located inside the brain, or do you think it...

• 1:28:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I I don't know how it emanates from the brain and how far it goes.

• 1:28:24Speaker 03

  But, you know, you've seen it. People who have the ability to,

• 1:28:32Speaker 03

  if there was a fork on that table over there, cause it to move without actually touching it.

• 1:28:43Speaker 03

  They've somehow managed to do that. That's part of their stream of consciousness that has control of the environment.

• 1:28:57Speaker 03

  And it's something that we have very little understanding of.

• 1:29:07Speaker 03

  And, you know, there are people like J.S. Bach. Think about all the music that he was able to produce. Incredible to be able to do a new mass or a new cantata in a matter of days. You think of somebody like George Frederick Handel. He produced The Messiah in three weeks. That's just incredible. How did they do that? It's hard to explain.

• 1:29:46Shawn Ryan?

  What do you find most fascinating about the human mind?

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  I think the ability for it to change people's lives. The fact that you can take somebody who is moving in the wrong direction and they can undergo a conversion experience that makes them into a different person. But are they really a different person? They have the same arms and legs and the heart and lung. But it's the brain, it's the mind that has changed them, that has made them into a different person.

• 1:30:35Speaker 03

  No other part of the body does that. That's why we spend so much time, my wife and I, trying to provide opportunities for children. That's why we created the Carson Scholars Fund. That's why we have the Little Patriots Component of the American Cornerstone Institute. Because we know that if you can positively affect the mind, the brain of a young person, you can change the trajectory of their life.

• 1:31:18Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into

• 1:31:22Shawn Ryan?

  politics. So what, what was it, I mean, you obviously had a extremely successful career in the medical field. And so what, what was it that,

• 1:31:40Shawn Ryan?

  why did you feel called to leave that and to get into politics?

• 1:31:46Speaker 03

  Well, you know, somebody told me that neurosurgeons die early. And I didn't believe it, so I wrote down the name of the ten, the last ten neurosurgeons that I knew who died. And I calculate the average age of death, and it was sixty-one. And I said, "I'm gonna retire when I turn sixty-one, if I'm still alive."

• 1:32:14Speaker 03

  Well, that same year, I was asked to speak at the Presidential Prayer Breakfast as the keynote speaker, which I thought was very strange, because I had spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast in nineteen ninety-seven, when Bill Clinton was president. I didn't know anybody ever did it twice. But I did some research and found out that there was one person who had done it twice, and that was Billy Graham. And I said, "That's pretty good company." So I agreed to do it.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  And after that speech, everybody was saying, "You should run for president." I said, "These people are crazy."

• 1:32:57Speaker 03

  "Why would I do something like that?" And...

• 1:33:03Speaker 03

  But I figured if I just ignored them, it would go away. But it didn't go away. Every place I went, there were people with placards, "Run, Ben, run." I had over five hundred thousand petitions in my office. And I finally just said, "Lord, you know I don't wanna run for president. But if you really want me to, you have to give me all the things that a person who runs for president has, a Rolodex with all the important names, an organization, a lot of money." Next thing I knew, all those things were there. Our organization was raising more money than the RNC.

• 1:33:43Speaker 03

  And it was a fascinating experience as I got out on the road, traveled to the smallest little hamlets in Tennessee or Alabama, to the largest cities. I was impressed by the fact that most of the American populace has common sense.

• 1:34:04Speaker 03

  But I was disappointed that most of them did not have courage. Those people were not willing to stand up for what they believed in. They wanted to go along, to get along. They didn't want to be canceled.

• 1:34:21Speaker 03

  And I realized that that was a problem for our country.

• 1:34:26Shawn Ryan?

  How did you figure that out? How did you figure out that the majority of people don't have courage?

• 1:34:34Speaker 03

  By talking to them. By asking them, "Why aren't you doing something about this?" Because people realized that our country was moving in the wrong direction.

• 1:34:48Speaker 03

  But very few people were willing to do anything about it, to stand up for it.

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  That's in the process of changing. We saw the manifestation of that in this last election. But it required a lot of people to be out there beating the bushes.

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  And that's why we were out there beating the bushes. And we'll continue to do so because we still have ways to go. We're a heavily divided country. And we've lost a lot of our moral compass. You know, things like traditional marriage are not occurring anymore

• 1:35:35Speaker 03

  or are occurring late. We're not having children. In 1960, the average woman had 3.6 children. Now we're down to 1.6. That's a problem.

• 1:35:53Speaker 03

  You know, in terms of traditional nuclear families, all you have to do is look at television for five minutes, any new series that comes on before they introduce an alternative to the traditional nuclear family.

• 1:36:11Speaker 03

  The values, all of our values are being questioned. And people are being driven apart.

• 1:36:19Shawn Ryan?

  What happens if we continue down the trajectory of a 1.6 birth rate per family? What is the math on that?

• 1:36:32Speaker 03

  Well, we've become irrelevant.

• 1:36:34Shawn Ryan?

  How fast?

• 1:36:35Speaker 03

  Hard to say. But probably pretty quickly. You see how, how much we've changed as a country just in the last 30 years. Things are going on now that no one would have imagined 30 years ago. And sometimes the country is hardly recognizable anymore. But I don't think that's the way that the majority of Americans want it to be.

• 1:37:11Speaker 03

  And one of the things that we've been trying to do is get people to wake up, particularly people of faith. It doesn't have to be that we're denigrating marriage anymore. It doesn't have to be that we're mutilating little children and taking advantage of the fact that they're very suggestible and very curious and doing things to them that will ruin their lives forever. Those things don't have to be.

• 1:37:54Speaker 03

  We don't have to have men playing in women's sports. All of these things are eroding our moral fabric. And that's exactly what those who want to fundamentally change us want. If you look at the Congressional Record from January the 10th, 1963, Congressman Hurlong of Florida read into the Congressional Record the 45 Goals of Communism in America.

• 1:38:25Speaker 03

  And they included all of those things. Gaining control of the schools and the teacher union so you can indoctrinate the kids. Gaining control of the media and Hollywood so you can change the culture of America. Making sexual perversion normal, natural, and healthy. Denigrating the role of the family, elevating the role of government. It's all in there.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  And we need to understand that we're under attack and we have to fight back.

• 1:39:05Shawn Ryan?

  Who do you think is orchestrating all of this?

• 1:39:09Speaker 03

  There have been people who have been opposed to the American way and American values since the very beginning.

• 1:39:20Speaker 03

  The Europeans thought that we were crazy. They said, "You can't run a nation on the will of the people. You have to have a monarch. You have to have a ruler."

• 1:39:33Speaker 03

  But in today's world, we have to contend with the factions that still believe that socialism and communism is a better way of life. That you give control of your life over to others who will guarantee that they will take care of you from the cradle to the grave. Even though it's never worked anywhere else, there are still those who push that and will continue to push it. And they've gained a lot of momentum.

• 1:40:11Speaker 03

  You can see how a lot of the college students seem to be taking that as something that is good.

• 1:40:23Speaker 03

  And I don't think that they really understand what socialism and communism is. And they don't really understand how good they have it in this country and what the opportunities are in this country for success. But we have to continue to fight that fight and bring people to the point where they actually will look at the data, will look at what has happened historically, will look around them and see

• 1:41:03Speaker 03

  who really has their best interest in mind and who is utilizing them. And I think that's a fight that's worth engaging in.

• 1:41:15Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think the most effective way to fight this is?

• 1:41:21Speaker 03

  Education. One of the things that you'll notice that the leftists in this country do is they shield people from information. You'll notice that the mainstream media did a very good job of keeping people away from the knowledge of what was going on. I remember coming back from the airport and I asked the limo driver what his thoughts were about Hunter Biden's computer, his laptop. He didn't know anything about it

• 1:42:04Speaker 03

  because he listens to the wrong news sources. Didn't know, it was a complete shock to hear about that. And a lot of these children that you see on these campuses rallying for Hamas and against Israel, they don't know anything. They're shouting about the river to the sea. They don't know what river, they don't know what sea. They don't know what the whole conflict is all about. They are manipulated because they're ignorant. And ignorance is bliss for the left

• 1:42:48Speaker 03

  because ignorant people are easy to manipulate.

• 1:42:52Shawn Ryan?

  What about raising your kids?

• 1:42:55Speaker 03

  What about?

• 1:42:57Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I don't know. I think that one of the ways that... I think it's gonna be a long turnaround, you know, if we turn it around.

• 1:43:04Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:05Shawn Ryan?

  It seems like we're doing, you know, making leaps and bounds right now, but we've seen that pendulum swing really far right and really far left. It doesn't seem to see much, uh, balance.

• 1:43:17Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:43:18Shawn Ryan?

  And, um...

• 1:43:22Shawn Ryan?

  So it's, I guess what I'm saying is I believe it's a generational fight.

• 1:43:28Shawn Ryan?

  And just, you have three sons. How old are your sons?

• 1:43:34Speaker 03

  Uh, forty-one, thirty-nine, and thirty-seven.

• 1:43:42Shawn Ryan?

  Do they have kids?

• 1:43:43Speaker 03

  They all have children, yep.

• 1:43:45Shawn Ryan?

  And I feel like that, uh, a lot of parents have abandoned their parental responsibilities for social media.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. That has happened.

• 1:44:00Shawn Ryan?

  They give their kids the phone.

• 1:44:04Shawn Ryan?

  The phone raises the kid, keeps them occupied so that the parent can be on the phone. And, um, I mean, I've, I've... To me, it seems, you know, we need to get back to

• 1:44:19Shawn Ryan?

  raising your kids, pouring into them, giving them everything you have, teaching them the values, not handing them the phone and, and...

• 1:44:28Speaker 03

  No question about it. And that, that's the, the reason that my, my wife and I wrote our last book, The Perilous Fight. The attack on the American family, combating it.

• 1:44:46Speaker 03

  And we talk about the fact that parents have to take back that responsibility. You can't leave that to the rest of the world, including social media, or you will suffer the consequences of it. You know, we only have one grandchild right now who's an adolescent. But she's wanting a cellphone and the parents are not giving her one. They say maybe a flip phone.

• 1:45:24Speaker 03

  But they fully recognize the deleterious effects of social media, which has other objectives rather than raising patriotic, successful individuals.

• 1:45:40Shawn Ryan?

  I'm curious to know, what is your best piece of advice on just being a good father?

• 1:45:58Speaker 03

  Well, the very best piece of advice would be to strengthen your relationship with God. You know, I don't want to preach, but I have a very strong faith in God. And He's answered so many of my requests, including a request for wisdom and direction. When sometimes the way looks murky, which way to go? He's never let me down.

• 1:46:43Speaker 03

  But when you have that relationship with God, it automatically improves your relationship with other people, including your spouse and your children. And you begin to understand the responsibilities that you have, particularly as a role model, as a protector, as a provider.

• 1:47:12Shawn Ryan?

  And so,

• 1:47:15Shawn Ryan?

  how do they build that relationship with God? I mean, I just figured it out about a year and a half ago. And it's totally changed my life.

• 1:47:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:47:27Shawn Ryan?

  But

• 1:47:31Shawn Ryan?

  I think for people that I think for people that are new to it, they need a little bit more than strengthening the relationship. How do they communicate with God? How do they build a relationship with God?

• 1:47:43Speaker 03

  Well, God tells you in the Bible. He says, "You will find me when you seek me with all your heart."

• 1:47:53Speaker 03

  You gotta look for Him. He's not gonna force Himself on you.

• 1:47:59Speaker 03

  But the Word is there. There are other people there.

• 1:48:07Speaker 03

  But if you're looking earnestly for that relationship, you'll find it.

• 1:48:13Speaker 03

  There's no one size fits all. You just have to know that you want it and to seek it. And I need to seek the bathroom once again.

• 1:48:26Shawn Ryan?

  All right.

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• 1:49:30Shawn Ryan?

  I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force-feed us.

• 1:49:43Shawn Ryan?

  And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth in what's going on in the country and in the world. And so, one thing we've done here at Sean Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan Show. And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind-blowing.

• 1:50:24Shawn Ryan?

  And so, I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So, it's gonna be all things terrorists, how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part, the newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two, if we release two shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But, like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up, link's in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter.

• 1:51:12Shawn Ryan?

  All right, we're back from the break and we were talking about, we're talking about faith. We were talking about how to find God, where to look, stuff like that. Let's get back into some politics stuff. So when you decided to run for president, we'd already kind of established earlier that criticism doesn't bother you, you paid no attention to it. Did you have any fear of the smear campaigns or anything like that for your family's sake? Was that a big decision for you?

• 1:51:46Speaker 03

  Well, you know, my wife wasn't particularly enthusiastic at first until the grandchildren started coming along. And then she realized that we have to do this for their sake, for their future possibilities. And certainly you don't want your family to be adversely affected. And, you know, particularly one of my sons is very entrepreneurial. We don't want his opportunities to be affected.

• 1:52:24Speaker 03

  But I think we all came to the understanding that we're working for the well-being of our country. And sometimes you have to sacrifice in order to do that.

• 1:52:38Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take for her to, well, get on board with you?

• 1:52:43Speaker 03

  It didn't take very long, once the grandchildren started popping out.

• 1:52:50Shawn Ryan?

  I remember it was the presidential debate in 2016 when the announcer skipped over your name and Donald Trump waited and walked out with you. It looked like you guys were having some type of a conversation.

• 1:53:11Speaker 03

  Well, you know, that really showed what kind of person he is because all the others gleefully walked by. And he came and stood by me and waited until the situation was rectified. He also was the only of the other candidates who complained to the media that they weren't asking me questions.

• 1:53:38Speaker 03

  Everybody else was glad they weren't asking me questions.

• 1:53:42Shawn Ryan?

  Why weren't they asking you questions?

• 1:53:44Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:53:48Speaker 03

  I think maybe they were afraid to give me too much attention.

• 1:53:54Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 1:53:56Speaker 03

  Because they knew that I had good answers.

• 1:54:00Speaker 03

  You know, they complained, they said,

• 1:54:04Speaker 03

  "You don't know enough about foreign affairs." I did a one-hour press conference in South Carolina with all the major media, there were a lot of them there.

• 1:54:15Speaker 03

  Answered every single question. They never said a thing about it.

• 1:54:20Shawn Ryan?

  What is it about you you think that they did not want you in there?

• 1:54:25Speaker 03

  I think they were afraid that particularly a lot of the people that they count on,

• 1:54:34Speaker 03

  many of the minorities and disadvantaged people, would identify with me. And it would impact their base in a very negative way for them.

• 1:54:49Shawn Ryan?

  Probably really on to something there.

• 1:54:53Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, what, you know, there's more, it seems like, I hope so, but...

• 1:55:01Shawn Ryan?

  Seems like more and more good people are starting to get into politics. Not saying a lot, but, um, I, I, a lot of my veteran friends are starting to get involved. I've thought about getting involved, I think I have a bigger impact doing what I'm doing now than I ever would running for office. But, um, but I see them doing it, my good friend Eli Crane, he's in there.

• 1:55:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:55:34Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, there's a lot of veterans, you know, getting involved, and so...

• 1:55:40Shawn Ryan?

  I'm curious, what, what advice do you have for anybody who wants to get involved and wants to run? I mean, because it is also, I mean, it's...

• 1:55:55Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's a daunting task. I mean, it seems like you're going up against the impossible.

• 1:56:02Speaker 03

  Well, you know, first of all, recognize that our nation was formed, upformed by the people. And that the government works for the people, not the other way around.

• 1:56:18Speaker 03

  And I think many people are starting to come to that understanding now. Many of these people that you just talked about, who are running.

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  It takes a lot of courage to do it.

• 1:56:34Speaker 03

  You have to be willing to sacrifice yourself and your family. There's no question about that. But the rewards are also great. And that you bring the issues to the forefront, if you're a good politician.

• 1:56:58Speaker 03

  And you really work on behalf of the people. Fully recognizing that there are many people in the system who are not good people. Who are doing things only to enhance their own position. And to enhance their own wealth. It's no coincidence that many of the people who get into our government come in as people of moderate means and end as multimillionaires.

• 1:57:32Speaker 03

  On the salary of a government worker. Obviously, there's some things going on there that aren't kosher.

• 1:57:44Speaker 03

  But to be on the other side of that, to actually represent the people, is a great thing.

• 1:57:52Speaker 03

  And it's why we've been able to survive all of this time. As you remember, Ben Franklin, after the 1787 Constitutional Convention, was asked, "Sir, what do we have here, a monarchy or a republic?" He said, "A republic if you can keep it." The only way we can keep it is to have people who are willing to undergo that self-sacrifice and to make themselves truly the representatives of that which is good for the people.

• 1:58:29Shawn Ryan?

  You got involved, well, you didn't get involved. You walked into the HUD with no government experience. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? How long did it take you to get settled?

• 1:58:48Speaker 03

  I got a lot of government experience very quickly. Because it was eight months before I had a deputy secretary. It was five months before I had any assistant secretaries. So every day was like drinking from the fire hydrant. And I didn't have a lot of buffer in between. So you had to learn stuff very, very quickly. And there were some people early on who were not the best people. Let's just put it that way. But once we got our assistant secretaries and deputy secretary in place

• 1:59:32Speaker 03

  and surrounded ourselves with very confident and good people, we were able to move very rapidly. As I mentioned earlier.

• 1:59:46Speaker 03

  The fiscal situation was pretty bad when I got there. No audits for eight years. And you always heard these horrible stories about the fiscal mismanagement at HUD and how money was missing and nobody knew where it was. You probably noticed that stopped about a year and a half until the Trump administration because we got it all straightened out. We were able to get Irv Dennis, who was a senior at Ernst & Young, senior partner.

• 2:00:26Speaker 03

  And he was reluctant at first, but we bugged him until he finally agreed to come. And to get the stuff under control, it made a huge difference once we were able to do that. And, you know, the real key for the secretary of any of the agencies is not necessarily to know everything, but it's to put people around you who together know everything and to work closely with them. And, you know, to be able to take information and to use it in an effective way.

• 2:01:11Speaker 03

  And that's where wisdom comes. I'd rather have somebody who's very wise than somebody who's a know-it-all and is not wise.

• 2:01:20Shawn Ryan?

  You said poverty is a state of mind and that ruffled a lot of feathers. How did you, I mean, I guess maybe it didn't bother you because you don't respond to criticism? So...

• 2:01:36Speaker 03

  Well, you know, if you have a victor's mentality, it doesn't matter what happens to you, you'll rise to the top. You know, they can take everything away from you and you'll go from the C-suite to the street. But if you have a victor's mentality, you'll be right back up there before long. If you have a victim's mentality, I can dust you off and put a three-piece suit on you and put you in the C-street and you'll find your way back down. That's what I meant by that.

• 2:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  So let's talk about what you're doing now. We started talking about some of the stuff, but tell me about the American cornerstone.

• 2:02:26Speaker 03

  Well, you know, as I mentioned before, I said I want to retire at 61. I failed that retirement, but after the first Trump administration, I said, this time I'm really gonna be the retire. But it wasn't many weeks after that election, seeing the direction that we were going in with the Biden administration. I said, I can't have any fun playing golf all day and cruising around the world and watching my country go down the tubes. So myself and some very talented people from HUD started the American Cornerstone Institute,

• 2:03:10Speaker 03

  which emphasizes the cornerstone principles that made us into a great country. You know, we didn't go from a bunch of ragtag militiamen to the pinnacle of the world by accident. It was because of what we believed in, and that was our faith, which teaches us how to relate to each other. Our Judeo-Christian values say, love your neighbor, not cancel your neighbor if they have a different yard sign or you disagree with them, but love your neighbor.

• 2:03:39Speaker 03

  The second cornerstone being liberty, the freedom to live the life that you want to live, one way or the other, as long as it doesn't interfere with other people. And that liberty is what has attracted so many people from all over the world.

• 2:03:59Speaker 03

  And those who try to say that we're a horrible country, that we're racist systemically, that we don't treat people fairly. If that were true, why would all these people be trying to get in here? Obviously, that's not true.

• 2:04:14Speaker 03

  And then the next cornerstone is community.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  You know, the ability to live together, to work together, to be happy together.

• 2:04:27Speaker 03

  That was one of the things that gave America a huge advantage and one of the reasons that we rose to the top so quickly. And if we abandon that sense of community, we will sink just as rapidly.

• 2:04:45Speaker 03

  And then the fourth cornerstone, life. Honoring life from the womb to the tomb.

• 2:04:56Speaker 03

  And that means not only being pro-life and respecting what God has created, but also caring about those people on the street, many of whom are drug addicts, many of whom are mentally ill, can't take care of themselves. We have a responsibility to deal with that, and it can't be just housing first. Ninety percent of those people end up back on the street. It has to be also housing second. Why are they on the street? And housing third, fix it.

• 2:05:32Speaker 03

  You know, most of those drug addicts who are out there, if they could push a button and they wouldn't be a drug addict anymore, they'd wear that button out.

• 2:05:42Speaker 03

  But it's not that simple. And we have to be willing to deal with that. We were, in fact, on the verge of a very exciting program in Los Angeles. I was working with Garcetti, who was the mayor, with Newsom, the governor, with several of the county executives

• 2:06:09Speaker 03

  to basically take care of the homelessness problem.

• 2:06:13Speaker 03

  And I think it would have worked. But just before we pulled the trigger, guess what happened? Covid.

• 2:06:24Speaker 03

  Everything was off the table. But I do believe it is very possible for Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve these problems.

• 2:06:35Shawn Ryan?

  How were you going to tackle that problem?

• 2:06:37Speaker 03

  Basically, by using some of the government land.

• 2:06:42Speaker 03

  And in California at that time, there was a $200 billion surplus. They've squandered it now.

• 2:06:53Speaker 03

  To provide some of the ancillary services, particularly for the mentally ill. I talked to the head of the American Psychiatric Society. He said, "The vast majority of those people with regular counseling here and medications can become very functional."

• 2:07:17Speaker 03

  And the same thing with the drug addicts.

• 2:07:22Speaker 03

  But if you don't provide the ancillary services, it'll never happen. You just continue to accumulate more and more of those individuals. And the other thing that we would do is relax many of the regulations that prevent you from doing that.

• 2:07:43Shawn Ryan?

  Does California have the highest homeless population? The largest homeless population? And the majority of them are mentally ill?

• 2:07:53Speaker 03

  About anywhere from 40 to 60% are there because of mental illness or drug addiction.

• 2:08:01Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you think there's such a high concentration of mentally ill in that state?

• 2:08:06Speaker 03

  Well, consider the population that they have.

• 2:08:11Speaker 03

  You know, 30-plus million people. You know, that's 10% of our population. So that's why they have the highest numbers. I don't think there's anything special about California. Other than the fact that they tolerate a lot of stuff. And they don't necessarily...

• 2:08:38Speaker 03

  Prosecute the people who distribute the drugs vigorously.

• 2:08:44Shawn Ryan?

  How are you getting the message out about American Cornerstone?

• 2:08:49Speaker 03

  I do a lot of lectures. We have a very significant social media presence. And that's primarily the way we get it out.

• 2:09:01Shawn Ryan?

  Where do you do the lectures?

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  All over the country.

• 2:09:08Speaker 03

  And I talk about it in many of the venues we go to. I'll talk about it tomorrow night in South Carolina. I'll talk about it next week in the places where we are doing things for Charlie Kirk's organization.

• 2:09:30Speaker 03

  I've been very impressed with the young people at the various universities with the Turning Point program. They're very interested in what we're talking about.

• 2:09:44Shawn Ryan?

  Do you talk about this in impoverished neighborhoods at all?

• 2:09:47Speaker 03

  In what?

• 2:09:48Shawn Ryan?

  In, in, in, in

• 2:09:55Shawn Ryan?

  lower-income neighborhoods?

• 2:09:59Speaker 03

  People from lower-income neighborhoods are able to come to the talks.

• 2:10:03Shawn Ryan?

  They are?

• 2:10:03Speaker 03

  In many cases, yes. And then I have done a number of things that are on the internet that, or on YouTube, that they have access to.

• 2:10:18Shawn Ryan?

  What's the response then?

• 2:10:21Speaker 03

  I get a lot of letters and correspondence from people who are very grateful.

• 2:10:34Speaker 03

  And that's why we keep doing it.

• 2:10:39Speaker 03

  It would be much easier just to sit back and relax and put our feet up.

• 2:10:46Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Dr. Carson, it's been an honor to talk to you here.

• 2:10:54Shawn Ryan?

  And so, I kind of want to close this out, but in closing,

• 2:10:59Shawn Ryan?

  what would you like to see the majority of Americans do? What's the one thing?

• 2:11:06Speaker 03

  I would like for them to recognize that we are not enemies.

• 2:11:13Speaker 03

  W A N E, Wayne, we are not enemies. Don't allow anybody to make you think that just because somebody disagrees with you, that they're your enemy.

• 2:11:27Speaker 03

  Our strength in the past has come from the fact that we have learned to overcome our differences and work together. And if we can bring that sense back, our strength will be unlimited.

• 2:11:44Shawn Ryan?

  Why aren't you going to be in President Trump's cabinet this time around?

• 2:11:48Speaker 03

  Well, President Trump and I are still in communication. But, you know, I strongly feel that we need to move aside people who are older and push forward people who are younger. Because does it make a lot of sense for somebody who's probably not going to be around in 20 years to be making policies that will impact people who will be here 20, 30, 40 years from now?

• 2:12:25Speaker 03

  I think you can work very well in the background as an advisor and a consultant.

• 2:12:35Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I would agree with that, but on the same token, you've got a lot of wisdom that younger people don't have yet. And that's

• 2:12:44Speaker 03

  But we disseminate that. And sort of like yourself, what we're doing with American Cornerstone, what Carson scholars, various other endeavors, I think is very supportive of the administration and what they're doing. So I still encourage people to go into government. One of the components of American Cornerstone is something we call the Executive Branch for America. And it's an online course that you can take that will teach you how the government works.

• 2:13:29Speaker 03

  All the ins and outs, how a bill becomes a bill, how finances are managed by the government, all the various intricacies. Why is that so important? Because if you go into government or you're one of the government staffers, it usually takes you a year to get acclimated to what's going on. By taking this online course, free of charge, by the way, you can hit the ground running. And we need more conservatives in the federal government

• 2:14:12Speaker 03

  who actually know how things work.

• 2:14:16Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think the first couple of months of the new administration's going?

• 2:14:21Speaker 03

  I'm enthusiastic seeing people actually getting involved with trimming the fat. Those who are having the fat trimmed are screaming like, wow, pigs. But, you know, if we don't do this, we're gonna go bankrupt. And the quality of everybody's life will suffer enormously if that's the case. Some people are able to see that and able to understand that, and some people are not. But I think we're making good progress.

• 2:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  I think so too. Very hopeful. Well, Dr. Carson, thank you so much.

• 2:15:09Speaker 03

  Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for being a pleasure.

• 2:15:12Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure. So, best of luck to you.

• 2:15:16Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:15:17Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.