WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to answer a question about police violence against blacks, noting that whites are also sometimes victims of police violence.
“And also whites, also whites,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’s Catherine Herridge when asked why African Americans continue to die at the hands of the police.
“What a terrible question. So are whites, whiter by the way, whiter,” Trump continued.
Whites account for about half of the people shot to death annually by police, according to a Washington Post database that tracks fatal police shootings in the United States. But the Census Bureau estimates that about 76 percent of the country is white, while only 13 percent is black. According to the Washington Post database, the rate at which black police shoot and kill is twice as high as that of whites.
Trump during the interview also once again defended the Confederate flag, saying that “it is freedom of expression.”
When asked if Trump would be comfortable with his supporters displaying the Confederate flag at political events, Trump said he was “comfortable with freedom of expression.”
“I know people who like the Confederate flag and don’t think about slavery. I look at NASCAR, you go to NASCAR, you have those flags everywhere, they detained him. I think it’s freedom of speech, whether it’s his Confederate flags, or Black Lives Matter, or whatever else you want to talk about, is freedom of expression, “Trump said.
NASCAR announced in June that it would ban Confederate flags from its events after Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr., the only black driver in the racing association’s biggest series, called for a change after the murder of George Floyd.
Trump has been criticized for his insistence on protecting monuments that honor Confederate leaders who fought to protect slavery and defend white supremacy. Trump went so far as to threaten to veto Congress’s annual defense authorization bill if it contained language to rename United States military bases in honor of Confederate commanders, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Hood in Texas.
Trump signed an executive order in late June to protect federal monuments after statues in memory of the Confederacy and some of the nation’s Founding Fathers were smashed.
