House and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson expressed dismay after he did not get the photo-op he was hoping for on Wednesday, thanks to a church in Baltimore.
Carson’s advance team and TV news crews had begun setting up for a news conference in West Baltimore on a grassy patch in front of a boarded-up row house when Gregory Evans, 71, of the Morning Star Baptist Church of Christ, walked over the inform them they had to move because they did not get permission from the church to be there.
“Why did someone come onto church property without permission?” Evans told reporters. “This community needs some support on all kinds of issues — on dilapidated housing and everything else. All of a sudden you’re going to show up on our property and not even ask permission to be here?”
Carson’s staffers and reporters moved about 30 yards away, according to the Atlantic.
After Carson arrived and began speaking about poor living conditions in the area, he took a moment to complain about the church. “They say, ‘Get off my property.’ A church! … This is the level to which we have sunken as a society,” he said about three-and-a-half minutes into his press conference.
Carson made plans to visit the city after President Trump called Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore district a “rat and rodent infested mess” on Saturday, prompting widespread backlash and charges of racism from the president’s critics. Trump’s team has pushed back, highlighting how Cummings and other politicians have used similar terminology to describe Baltimore’s dilapidated areas.
Cummings declined an invitation from the Trump administration to tour a federal housing facility in Baltimore with Carson on Wednesday, citing a scheduling conflict.
