Jayme Deerwester

USA TODAY

TV host Steve Harvey was the latest celebrity to drop in for a meeting at Trump Tower on Friday. And now he's explaining what it was all about.

"Our president (Obama) asked that all of us sit down and talk to one another in order to move our country forward," the host of Family Feud and The Steve Harvey Show noted in a statement posted to Twitter. "The transition teams on both sides asked me to meet and I'm glad I did."

Harvey said that Trump "immediately got (HUD secretary nominee) Dr. Ben Carson on the phone to begin dialog in looking for programs and housing to help our inner cities." He added that the president-elect "seems very open to my mentoring efforts across the country."

He added, "I walked away feeling like I had just talked with a man who genuinely wants to make a difference in this area. I feel that something really great could come out of this."

Harvey's bottom line? "I would sit with him anytime."

Harvey, who has been weathering a blowback over racial comments about Asian men on his talk show, told reporters after the meeting, “They're kind of beating me up on the Internet right now for no reason, but that's life, isn’t it?” (That situation is not likely to improve dramatically after Friday's meeting.)

Kanye says he met with Trump to discuss 'multicultural issues'

Meanwhile, Carson appeared before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Thursday. Like many of Trump's cabinet picks, he's been critical of the agency he hopes to lead.

Carson: Can't promise HUD programs won't benefit Trump

“These government-engineered attempts to legislate racial equality create consequences that often make matters worse," Carson wrote in a 2015 Washington Times op-ed. "There are reasonable ways to use housing policy to enhance the opportunities available to lower-income citizens, but based on the history of failed socialist experiments in this country, entrusting the government to get it right can prove downright dangerous.”

The 65-year-old rose from an impoverished youth in Detroit to attend Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School, lead the pediatric neurosurgery department at John Hopkins University and later contend for the Republican presidential nomination.

After Trump won the election, Carson demurred when initially asked about a possible cabinet post, citing his lack of experience in government or running a federal agency.

When probed by Ohio's Sen. Sherrod Brown, Carson explained,“My philosophy is that we can increase people’s minimum wages by increasing opportunities for them and creating an environment where those opportunities exist rather than artificially trying to change it.”

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked if Carson could assure her that Trump's real-estate businesses would not profit from HUD projects, he argued, “If there happens to be an extraordinarily good program that’s working for millions of people and it turns out that someone that you’re targeting is going to gain $10 from it, am I going to say ‘no,' the rest of Americans can’t have it?”