During recent questioning in Congress, Ben Carson demonstrated that he is not familiar with the common term real estate term “REO,” which means real estate owned.
Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., on May 21 questioned Carson during a House Financial Services Committee hearing.
“Do you know what an REO is?” Porter asked.
“Oreo?” a perplexed Carson answered.
“REO,” Porter repeated. “No, not an Oreo. An R-E-O.”
“Real estate?” Carson guessed. Porter then asked him what the “O” meant.
“The organization,” he replied.
Porter then explained the term to him. Porter was a mortgage settlement official earlier in her career. She was very patient with him.
“That’s what happens when a property goes to foreclosure,” she said. “We call it an REO. And FHA loans have much higher REOs — that means they go to foreclosure rather than loss-mitigation or to non-foreclosure alternatives such as short sales — than comparable loans at the GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises).”
Apparently, it’s very easy to confuse Ben Carson.
Carson became confused during the hearing when Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked him if he was familiar with OMWI, the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.
Carson asked, “With who?”
“OMWI,” Beatty repeated.
“Amway?” Carson asked.
Carson ran for president in the 2016 election cycle. Aa month into the season, after failing to win any state primaries, Carson formally suspended his campaign in early March 2016, after it became clear he was not a viable candidate. However, he became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump. In December 2016, Trump announced that he would nominate Carson to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In March 2017 Carson was confirmed by the Senate, 58–41, and took office shortly thereafter.
Trump‘s choice for HUD Secretary also made news when he told a friend that he did not think he was qualified to serve in the Cabinet. Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager and friend, told The Hill by phone, “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”
I think it’s apparent that Carson, who has not been a stellar success as HUD Secretary, was correct when he said that he was not qualified to serve in the Cabinet.