In an interview this morning with Newsmax TV, conservative activist and potential GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson insisted that President Obama’s executive action providing temporary deportation relief for some undocumented immigrations is part of a “nefarious agenda” to bring government-dependent voters to the U.S.
“I think he’s very smart, he’s very clever, he’s very scheming,” Carson told host J.D. Hayworth. “And, boy, if he could use that intellect on behalf of the American people rather than on behalf of his nefarious agenda, we would be doing quite well.”
“Essentially, is he just trying to instead of get out the vote, bring in the vote?” asked Hayworth, a former GOP congressman from Arizona. “Is this all designed to have new voters — despite the fact he claims they’re not going to get citizenship — is the long-term goal to bring in a new class of voters dependent on government?”
“Of course it is,” Carson replied.
Later in the interview, Carson offered his recommendation for how Republicans in Congress should respond to the president’s announcement: by shutting down the government, but only the parts that are “important to the president” and not any parts that will “hurt the American people.”
“I hope they put in front of them a whole list of the things that can be defunded, and then look specifically at the ones that are going to hurt [Obama] and those around him. Defund those things. I don’t want things that are going to hurt the American people,” Carson said, claiming that during the sequester, President Obama chose to cut funding on programs that would “inflict the most pain on the American people.”
“It’s not an all-or-none phenomenon,” he said. “You don’t have to shut down the important parts of the government. You just defund the things that are important to the president.”
Carson did not provide any specifics of programs to cut that would hurt Obama but not anybody else.