As if to prove President Donald Trump’s points about his ineffectiveness as a leader, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) skipped out on an offer to tour a Baltimore Housing and Urban Development (HUD) facility with HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

The tour was Wednesday and Cummings was reportedly given an invitation to join the tour on Tuesday, an invitation he declined.

Asked about Cummings being absent, Carson had no explanation but said it may have been a scheduling issue.

Carson is actually a former Baltimore resident. He was a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon at the city’s Johns Hopkins Hospital, so he has insights into the city that many leftists crying racism over Trump’s recent tweets do not have.

Acknowledging that there are “good parts” to Baltimore and good people, Carson said, “There are problems and we can’t sweep them under the rug.”

He continued, “It’s sort of like if you have a patient who has cancer. You can dress them up and put a suit on them and you can try to ignore it, but that cancer has a devastating effect.”

Carson said his experience as a doctor in Baltimore showed him just how badly the city was suffering. He revealed that the large number of infested buildings in the city often led to serious health problems among residents, especially children.

“We had large numbers of people with asthma because of the mold and some of the environmental issues [here], so, you know, that was a problem for me,” Carson said, “and it stayed on my mind a lot and somehow … I end up as the Secretary of HUD and [now] we can actually deal with these issues.”

To fix the problems in Baltimore, Carson said people need to stop the “animosity” towards each other and “work together.”

Carson said he’s been in contact with Trump recently over the issues in Baltimore, which flies in the face of those saying the president is not sincere in pointing out issues in the city.

“I’ve talked to the president over the last couple of days about what [we can] do for Baltimore,” Carson said. “He’s very willing to work with people here in Baltimore, including with Elijah Cummings.”

He went on to say that the president’s “emphasis is on the people.”

Carson also praised the Trump administration for making great progress on the economy and issues like prison reform. He said the results of the administration can already be seen throughout the country and Baltimore will be positively affected too.

Source: Fox News

Carson previously talked about his experience with Baltimore in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

He said as a doctor he faced a “horrible dilemma” when treating children from poor neighborhoods in the city “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, and I didn’t want to send them back.”

He added, “Sometimes I would even consider extra tests so they could stay in the hospital an extra day or two.”

Carson’s press conference was a bit of a bumblefest and he was nowhere near hard enough on Maryland officials like Cummings, but it is commendable that he is actually doing work to improve Baltimore and it’s important that a brilliant and respected man like himself is open about his experiences in the city because those experiences contradict all of the ridiculous theories leftists are throwing out about Trump in an attempt to avoid talking about the real issues in Baltimore.

Trump said he plans to visit Baltimore himself “at the right time.”