WATCH: Ben Carson Struggles to Explain Foreclosure Term

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson was grilled by lawmakers during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. During the Tuesday hearing, California representative Katie Porter asked Carson a question about the foreclosure rate among low income borrowers. But Carson appeared to struggle with her question, especially after Porter, a Democrat, pressed Carson to say whether he understood the terms she was using.

Porter began by saying she wanted to ask Carson about REOs. REOs, or “real estate owned” properties, are properties which have been foreclosed on. After an unsuccessful sale at a foreclosure auction, they become the property of a bank, a government agency, or a government-approved lender.

Porter asked Carson whether he knew what REOs are.

“Oreo?” he asked.

“No, not oreo. REO,” Porter said.

“Real estate…” Carson said.

“Do you know what the O stands for?” Porter asked.

“E…Organization,” Carson said.

“Owned,” Porter said, correcting him. “Real estate owned.”

“That’s what happens when a property goes to foreclosure,” the California representative went on. “We call it an REO. And FHA loans have much higher REOs—that means they go to foreclosure rather than loss-mitigation or to non-foreclosure alternatives such as short sales—than comparable loans at the GSEs.”

Porter said she wanted to ask Carson why there were more foreclosures among FHA (Federal Housing Authority) loans than conventional mortgages.Carson replied that he would be happy to have her “work with the people who do that.”

Porter later tweeted out the clip, noting that Carson didn’t seem to know the difference between a foreclosure term and a chocolate sandwich cookie. She wrote, “I asked @SecretaryCarson about REOs – a basic term related to foreclosure – at a hearing today. He thought I was referring to a chocolate sandwich cookie. No, really.”

An older term for REO is Other Real Estate Owned, or OREO.

Carson, a neurosurgeon and one-time presidential candidate, has been the Secretary of Housing and Urban development since 2017.