May 22, 2019 12:24 PM UTC

At Least He's Not Your HUD Secretary Forever

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• by: Colorado Pols

In another edition of our long-running series, “At Least They’re Not Your Legislator,” we take you to Washington D.C., where HUD Secretary and all-around weirdo Ben Carson might like a cookie.

Carson appeared Tuesday in front of the House Financial Services Committee and had a bit of trouble with some real estate terminology, as Politico reports:

[Rep. Katie Porter ] asked Carson to “explain the disparity in REO rates — do you know what an REO is?”

“An Oreo?” Carson responded.

“No, not an Oreo. An R-E-O. R-E-O,” Porter said, prompting Carson to offer, “real estate?”

“Real estate owned – that’s what happens when a property goes into foreclosure, we call it an REO, and FHA loans have much higher REOs, that is, they go into foreclosure rather than into loss mitigation or to non-foreclosure alternatives like short sales, than comparable loans” at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said Porter, who later tweeted out the exchange.

We’re almost more amused by the fact that Sec. Carson thought he was being asked to talk about a cookie.