Ben Carson Confronted on Donald Trump and the Ten Commandments

Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and former housing and urban development secretary under former President Donald Trump, was confronted by CNN's Abby Phillip on Friday night about Trump's support of the Ten Commandments being displayed in Louisiana schools.

The conversation comes after Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry signed a bill into law on Wednesday requiring the Ten Commandments to be on display in every public school classroom in the state. Louisiana is the only state in the country to have such a law.

This new law has sparked a conversation about the separation of church and state, and has faced backlash from civil rights groups who call it "blatantly unconstitutional."

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU's Louisiana chapter, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation announced on Wednesday that they would file a lawsuit to challenge the new law.

On Friday, Trump, the presumptive GOP 2024 presidential nominee, praised the new law and the idea of having the Ten Commandments displayed in schools and "many other places."

He wrote on his social media site, Truth Social: "I love the Ten Commandments in public schools, private schools, and many other places, for that matter. Read it — How can we, as a nation, go wrong??? This may be, in fact, the first major step in the revival of religion, which is desperately needed, in our country. Bring back TTC!!! MAGA2024."

While appearing on CNN NewsNight on Friday night, Carson, who has been floated as a possible running mate for Trump and has backed Louisiana's new law, was asked by Phillip: "Have you ever seen the Ten Commandments up at any Trump properties?

"I haven't specifically seen them," Carson responded. "I don't know if they are there or not."

Phillip then asked: "Shouldn't they be?" To which Carson replied: "I wouldn't object to them being there. I don't object to them not being there."

"If they're such universal tenets, why are they not up where former President Trump controls what happens?" Phillip argued. "I mean, he owns those properties, he operates them, he could put them up. Shouldn't they be up?"

Carson said: "This is not about [former] President Trump. This is about what's happening to the moral fiber of our nation."

When asked by Newsweek on Saturday morning if Trump displays the Ten Commandments on any of his properties, Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung did not answer the question and instead wrote in an email: "Abby Phillip has no idea what she's talking about and just makes things up because she has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. That's why nobody watches her show and her ratings are embarrassing."

Newsweek has reached out to the Carson Scholars Fund via email for comment from Carson.

Reacting to a clip of Phillip's interview with Carson that was posted to X, formerly Twitter, Adam Parkhomenko, a Democratic strategist, thanked Phillip for her line of questioning.

Mike Harvey, a Democratic nominee for Florida's state Senate, wrote on X: "This ' 10 commandments law,' will get stricken down by the Supreme Court and they know it. Maga needed to generate yet another culture war, to keep their base busy chasing the shiny object. If the base is preoccupied, it limits their ability to accidentally discover the truth."

Update 6/22/24, 11:56 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Cheung.