In an interview with Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, host Chuck Todd demanded to know why the GOP contender had been critical of the left-wing “Black Lives Matter” movement: “...you were also, in an earlier interview this week, asked about the Black Lives Matter movement. And you called it ‘silly.’ Why did you call it silly?”
Carson explained how Todd had taken his words completely out of context: “I don't recall calling it ‘silly,’ but what I called silly is political correctness going amuck. That's what's silly....I guess it was Martin O'Malley who said, you know, ‘black lives matter, white lives matter,’ he got in trouble for that and had to apologize. That's what – that's what I'm talking about is silly. Of course all lives matter.”
Carson added: “You know, for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way.”
Todd proceeded to parrot the liberal movement’s talking points:
Well, and that is what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing and why they criticize politicians for saying all lives matter because their point is, until – that there is inequality here. That particularly – you brought up African-American men and that overall stat – but think about the issue of police custody, that an African-American is more likely to die in police custody than any other race or ethnicity.
Carson pushed back: “Yeah, but, again, I think we need to look at the whole picture. One of the things that I always like to point out to people is, how about we just remove the police for 24 hours? Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue?...We need to be a little more mature...”
Wrapping up the interview minutes later, Todd plucked out a question from social media: “Alright, I'm going to close here with a question from a Facebook poster. And this one came from Victor Roush. Simple question, ‘Does the Bible have authority over the Constitution?’”
Carson replied: “He said that's a simple question? That is not a simple question by any stretch of the imagination.”
Todd rephrased: “A simply worded question, how's that?”
Carson observed: “I think probably what you have to do is ask a very specific question about a specific passage of the Bible and a specific portion of the Constitution. I don't think you can answer that question other than out of very specific context.”
Here is a portion of the August 2 exchange:
11:20 AM ET
(...)
CHUCK TODD: Let's go to some issues. You spoke to the National Urban League earlier this week, and you were also, in an earlier interview this week, asked about the Black Lives Matter movement. And you called it “silly.” Why did you call it silly?
BEN CARSON: Well, you know, I don't – I don't recall calling it “silly,” but what I called silly is political correctness going amuck. That's what's silly. When, you know – I guess it was Martin O'Malley who said, you know, “black lives matter, white lives matter,” he got in trouble for that and had to apologize. That's what – that's what I'm talking about is silly.
Of course all lives matter. And of course we should be very concerned about what's going on, particularly in our inner cities. It's a crime. You know, for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way.
TODD: Well, and that is what the Black Lives Matter movement is doing and why they criticize politicians for saying all lives matter because their point is, until – that there is inequality here. That particularly – you brought up African-American men and that overall stat – but think about the issue of police custody, that an African-American is more likely to die in police custody than any other race or ethnicity.
CARSON: Yeah, but, again, I think we need to look at the whole picture. One of the things that I always like to point out to people is, how about we just remove the police for 24 hours? Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue? And the vast majority of police are very good people. Are there bad apples? Of course. But if you hire a plumber and he does a bad job, do you say all plumbers are bad, let's go out and kill them? I don't think we do that. We need to be a little more mature, but certainly in cases where police are doing things that are inappropriate, I think we ought to investigate those promptly and justice should be swift.
(...)
