Dr. Ben Carson, former President Donald Trump's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told Newsmax that if the U.S. power grid fails, "everything comes to a screeching halt."
During a Wednesday appearance on "The Chris Salcedo Show," the one-time presidential candidate walked through the disastrous effects of a potential domestic power grid failure amid turbulent energy markets.
"We worry about what happens when there's no water because water is powered by electricity. That's how it's delivered," Carson said. "In places where we've seen these blackouts occur, the shelves are bare of food within a couple of days. The hospitals, of course, are run on electricity. So they're shut down.
"Everything comes to a screeching halt. You won't even have good police forces, because the police are going to be at home trying to protect their family. So we're talking about an incredible disaster."
Carson's warning also stems from former CIA Director R. James Woolsey informing Congress in 2015 that "90% of the U.S. population would die" in the event of a future electromagnetic disturbance from the sun.
"It's not just the electromagnetic pulses. ... but a nuclear explosion in the XO atmosphere could cause EMP to knock on all our electric grids," he pointed out. "It's inevitable; it's going to occur" eventually.
The former HUD secretary further suggested that an enemy of the United States could send operatives across the southern border to knock out "about 20 substations that everything else is associated with."
"We should be smart enough to deal with it, but we're not, for some strange reason," Carson said.
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