Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson challenged state officials reluctant to ease coronavirus lockdown restrictions with a statement on American “tradition.”
During an interview on Monday night’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked Carson whether he agreed with “this idea that [President Donald Trump] put forward that he thinks some of these states are refraining from reopening because they think that politically it will hurt him.”
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The HUD secretary expressed regret that seemingly “everything is cast in a political arena these days” when the goal is “to get the American people back on target.”
“We have to recognize that for every day that our economy remains shut down, there are businesses that go under, job losses that occur,” he said. “And you know, right now we’ve had a disaster, but we can still recover from it if we use our common sense and we use the things that we’ve learned about the virus and about its transmission to get people back to work.” (RELATED: ‘That Really Snapped My Neck’: Mike Rowe Has A Bone To Pick With Andrew Cuomo’s ‘If It Saves A Single Life’ Remark)
Carson went on to explain the two choices Americans face going forward: “We can stay shattered and allow this thing to control us and when we finally come out, everything will be destroyed. Or we can act like, you know, our tradition is. Americans tend to be innovative. They tend to be entrepreneurial. And they tend to be brave. This is the home of the brave, remember that.”