Washington (CNN) Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who worked for decades as a top neurosurgeon in Baltimore, on Wednesday stood by President Donald Trump's depiction of the city as a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess."

Carson told reporters during a visit to the city that despite progress Baltimore has made in recent years, "there are problems and we can't sweep them under the rug."

"It's sort of like if you have a patient who has cancer. You can dress them up, and put a nice suit on them, and you can try to ignore it, but that cancer is going to have a devastating effect," said Carson, who has frequently defended the President against charges of racism over the years. "You have to be willing to address that issue if you are ever going to solve it."

former neurosurgeon for decades at Johns Hopkins, Carson -- the only African-American in Trump's Cabinet -- recalled on Wednesday how he faced a "dilemma" over sending children he operated on back to neighborhoods in East and West Baltimore, "where there were rats and roaches and mice and ticks."

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