Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

(CNSNews.com) - Ben Carson, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, lived in Baltimore for many years, when he worked as a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

After President Trump spent the weekend criticizing both the city and its elected representative, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), Carson on Monday defended both Cummings and Trump and said it's difficult to change circumstances unless "family issues" are addressed:

You need to address the family issues. You know, there was a poverty study by the Brookings Institute, and it concluded after a massive study that there were three things a person could do to reduce the likelihood of poverty to 2 percent or less. Number one, finish high school. Number two, get married. Number three, wait until you're married to have children. But a lot of our policies over these decades have not reflected that, and in fact, have moved us in the opposite direction. We should actually utilize the data. It would make a huge difference.

Carson said when he worked in Baltimore, saving the lives of its children, he worked with Cummings on childhood eduation and improving the lives of the people.

I don't think Elijah Cummings is a bad person," Carson said:

I think he actually is working hard to try to help people. And I certainly don't think President Trump is a bad person. He's working very hard - in fact, I asked him today, would you be willing to work with Elijah Cummings to bring some relief to the people of Baltimore? He said he would be happy to. But in the meantime, he's going to continue with the programs, you know, like the opportunity zones, which get people to take money and invest it into the areas that are distressed. There are 149 of them in Maryland. And, you know, Governor Hogan is doing a good job of helping to capitalize upon that. But, also, you know, unemployment is at a very low level. Manufacturing is coming back, wages are going up, you know, prison reform. All of these things are happening. These are not things that a person who is a racist would do. And we allow ourselves to be distracted by these things. And I think what President Trump was trying to say is that rather than spending your time talking about, you know, our brave border agents and investigating endlessly things that you can't find anything on, why not spend some time working more for these people, you know, who are suffering? And that he is willing to work with them. I think that's what we should be asking for.

President Trump, however, continued his campaign against Cummings late into Monday night, tweeting: