Ben Carson in Meet the Press interviews during 2015

On Foreign Policy: Political solution must accompany military solution in Syria

CARSON: I think the military solution is to try to exterminate ISIS and the other radical jihadists who will not allow peace to occur under any circumstances until they achieve their goals. But in terms of a place like Syria, the likelihood of an Assad regime maintaining peaceful control is extremely small. And the likelihood of El Masrah or any of the anti-Assad factions maintaining control is also very small. So, you need to be working on some type of mechanism to keep it from being in perpetual turmoil. I think the most compassionate thing when you're fighting a war is to do it quickly. The longer you drag it out, the more people are hurt. And I think we need to work in close conjunction with our Department of Defense, with our Pentagon, with our experts.

On Abortion: I would love to see Roe v. Wade overturned

CARSON: In the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby.

Q: What if somebody has an unwanted pregnancy? Should they have the right to terminate?

CARSON: No. Think about this. During slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave. And what if the abolitionist had said, you know, "I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong. But you guys do whatever you want to do"--Where would we be?

Q: Definitively, do you want to see Roe v. Wade overturned?

CARSON: I would love to see it overturned.

On Abortion: Maybe exceptions for life of mother, not for rape or incest

CARSON: I'm a reasonable person. And if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I'll listen.

Q: Life and health of the mother?

CARSON: Again, that's an extraordinarily rare situation. But if in that very rare situation it occurred, I believe there's room to discuss that.

Q: Rape and incest?

CARSON: Rape and incest, I would not be in favor of killing a baby because the baby came about in that way. And all you have to do is go and look up the many stories of people who have led very useful lives who were the result of rape or incest.

On Gun Control: No limits to gun ownership, except in cases of insanity

CARSON: Well, my point being we should never compromise the Second Amendment. Of course, we should be thinking about what we can do to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of mentally unstable people. The two things are not incompatible.

Q: So you're not saying there should be a limitation on what type of weapon a sane person should be able to buy?

CARSON: Of course not. You know, when we put this amendment in place, you know, state-of-the-art weapon was what? A musket? But the principle was that the citizenry should have access to whatever they needed in order to protect themselves from an overly aggressive government.

On Health Care: Replace need for Medicare with HSAs & catastrophic insurance

A: No. The system that I would put in place would largely negate the need for Medicare or Medicaid. I'm not talking about getting rid of those programs. We'll make health savings accounts available to people from the day that they are born to the day that they die, at which time they can pass it on to their family. We pay for it with the same dollars that we pay for our health care with. We give people the ability to shift money within their HSA within their family. If you're $500 short, your wife can give it to you out of hers. It gives you flexibility without a middleman. That'll take care of the largest number of incidents. It doesn't take care of catastrophic health care. But you can buy a catastrophic health care policy. And it's going to cost you a lot less because the only thing coming out of your catastrophic insurance is real catastrophic health care.

On Principles & Values: A Muslim president would not stay true to American values

CARSON: Well, I guess it depends on what that faith is. If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the constitution, no problem.

Q: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?

CARSON: No, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.

On War & Peace: Don't get involved in Syria, but push ISIS in that direction

CARSON: I would use every resource available to us, which includes financial resources, covert operations, Special Forces, and ground troops if necessary. Because it's unlikely that a coalition will form behind nothing.

In terms of going into Syria, I think we need to push them out of Iraq, which is the largest part of the caliphate ISIS has established. We also can't let them continue to control Anbar, one of the largest energy fields. I would be in favor of pushing them up into Syria. There's a very complex situation in Syria. You have the Russians coming in there now and establishing themselves. You have China starting to do the same. You want to be very, very careful before you jump into the middle of that situation.

Q: So you're one of those that says, "Let Assad and ISIS fight it out amongst themselves, and then clean up the mess later?"

CARSON: That is certainly something to consider.

On Civil Rights: Political correctness undermines Black Lives Matter movement

CARSON: Well, I don't recall calling it silly, but what I called silly is political correctness going amuck. When, I guess it was Martin O'Malley who said, "Black lives matter, white lives matter." He got in trouble for that and had to apologize. That's what I'm talking about is silly. We need to be a little more mature, but certainly in cases where police are doing things that are inappropriate, I think we ought to investigate those promptly and justice should be swift.

Q: So do black lives matter?

CARSON: Of course all lives matter, and of course we should be very concerned about what's going on, particularly in our inner cities. You know, for a young black man, the most likely cause of death is homicide. That is a huge problem that we need to address in a very serious way.

On Principles & Values: Personal religion important, but it's not the law

CARSON: I find a very good measure of correlation between my religious beliefs and my scientific beliefs. People say, "How can you be a scientist, how can you be a surgeon if you don't believe in certain things?" You know, I'm always willing to sit down and discuss things. And people who say, "Well, you have to believe this and you have to believe that," I'm willing to discuss with them why they believe what they believe, and why I believe what I believe. A person's religious beliefs are the things that make them who they are, give them a direction in their life. But I do not believe that religious beliefs should dictate one's public policies and stances. And our laws that we enforce have nothing to do with our own personal beliefs. They have to do with the Constitution of this country.

On War & Peace: Eradicate ISIS as quickly and efficiently as possible

CARSON: Well, first of all, recognize that ISIS and some of the other radical Islamic terrorist groups -and let's not forget about the Shia which are based in Iran-- are responsible for a lot of terrorism. They would like to destroy us and our way of life. We have a couple of options. We can sit back and say, "Nah, they're not that big a deal," or we can recognize that the longer we allow them to grow, to spread, to root, get their roots well established, the more difficult it will be to eradicate them later. So what I mean is we have to eradicate them now. We have to use every means possible to do that. And we certainly don't want to have people who know very little about military strategy micromanaging a very competent military that we have.