Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson Benjamin (Ben) Solomon CarsonState AGs condemn HUD rule allowing shelters to serve people on basis of biological sex Biden cannot keep letting Trump set the agenda The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump heads to New Hampshire after renomination speech MORE on Monday night defended President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE's scathing comments about Baltimore, where Carson worked for years as a neurosurgeon.

Carson, the only black member of Trump's Cabinet, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson Tucker CarlsonJudge tosses Karen McDougal's defamation suit against Tucker Carlson OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House passes sweeping clean energy bill | Pebble Mine CEO resigns over secretly recorded comments about government officials | Corporations roll out climate goals amid growing pressure to deliver Former Florida attorney general calls Kyle Rittenhouse 'a little boy out there trying to protect his community' MORE that while at Johns Hopkins Hospital he would sometimes find ways to keep young patients for an extra day or two to keep them from returning to squalid conditions.

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"As a pediatric neurosurgeon, I spent many hours, sometimes operating all night long, trying to give children of Baltimore and other places around the world a second chance at life. And usually we were successful,” Carson said.

“But a few days later, I was in a horrible dilemma, because some of those kids had to go back into homes in East Baltimore that were infested with rats and roaches and ticks and mold and lead and violence,” he added.

Trump spent much of the last few days degrading Baltimore and Rep. Elijah Cummings Elijah Eugene CummingsBlack GOP candidate accuses Behar of wearing black face in heated interview Overnight Health Care: US won't join global coronavirus vaccine initiative | Federal panel lays out initial priorities for COVID-19 vaccine distribution | NIH panel: 'Insufficient data' to show treatment touted by Trump works House Oversight Democrats to subpoena AbbVie in drug pricing probe MORE (D-Md.), who represents parts of the city. Over the weekend, he described Baltimore as a "very dangerous & filthy place" where "no human being would want to live."

He went on to call Cummings — the son of South Carolina sharecroppers — a "racist."

But Trump's own remarks, in which he described the majority-black city as "infested" with rodents and accused Cummings without evidence of corruption, have been broadly condemned by Democrats as racist.

Carson, who denied earlier this month that the president is racist amid fierce backlash to his attacks on four progressive lawmakers, again pushed back on the charges against Trump. He noted improving economic conditions for minority groups.

Carson said he believes that Cummings "is working hard to try to help people” and that he believes Trump would be willing to work on aiding Baltimore.