When asked by CBS News’ Catherine Herridge why African Americans continue to die at the hands of police in the United States, Trump told the interviewer that he had asked a “terrible question.”
“And so are whites. So are whites. What a terrible question to ask. So are whites. More white people, by the way. More white people,” Trump said.
A federal study evaluating data on deaths between 2009 and 2012 due to lethal force by police found that the majority of victims were white, but a disproportionate number were black, with a 2.8 times higher death rate. The study also found that black victims were more likely than whites to be unarmed.
Trump’s comment follows a summer filled with massive protests across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.
National calls for police reform prompted Trump to sign an executive order that, among other steps, creates a federal database of police officers with a history of excessive use of force in June.
During the signing of the executive order, Trump did not address the problem of racism directly. Instead, he offered a full-fledged police defense and suggested that the repeated cases of officers killing unarmed American blacks rest with a small number of individual officers.
“They are very small. I use the word small,” he said. “It is a very small percentage. But nobody wants to get rid of them more than the really good and great police officers.”
In recent weeks, Trump has focused primarily on praising the police, rather than addressing possible additional reforms. This week, for example, the White House held a round table this week with Americans with stories of being assisted by the police.
Trump also criticized the Black Lives Matter and defended the Confederate symbols. Earlier this month, the president called the Black Lives Matter movement a “symbol of hatred,” days after he retweeted and later deleted a video that included a Florida supporter yelling “White Power.” The White House has maintained that Trump did not hear the supporter say the phrase.
As calls for reforms evolved, Trump leaned toward protecting the statues of Confederate icons and famous American slave owners, eventually signing an executive order seeking to toughen sanctions on those who alter statues on federal land. .
Trump told CBS News that he believes the Confederate flag is “freedom of expression” and compared it to the same liberties of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I like it, I don’t like it, it’s freedom of expression,” Trump said.
Trump did not directly answer whether he would approve of his supporters displaying Confederate flags and said: “It depends on what your definition is, but I am comfortable with freedom of expression. It is very simple.”
But he expressed explicit disapproval of NASCAR’s decision to ban the Confederate flag race, a week after the White House press secretary refused to denounce the flag and alleged that the president was not “making a judgment.” over the flag in his tweet to driver Bubba Wallace.
“People love it and I know people who like the Confederate flag and don’t think about slavery. I look at NASCAR … they had those flags everywhere. They stopped him. I think it’s freedom of expression,” Trump he told CBS News. “Whether it’s Confederate flags or Black Lives Matter of anything else you want to talk about. It’s freedom of expression.”
In a separate interview Tuesday with the conservative website Townhall, Trump defended a St. Louis couple who pointed their guns at protesters on their way to a rally. Protesters were on their way to protest outside the St. Louis Mayor’s residence, cutting off a private street in front of the couple’s home, when the couple brandished their weapons.
“They would be mistreated, if they were lucky, okay? If they were lucky … and the house would be totally looted and probably burned, as if they were trying to burn churches,” Trump said. “And these people were standing there, they never used it, and they were legal, the weapons, and now I understand someone local, they want to prosecute these people. It is a disgrace.”
CNN’s Jason Hoffman and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
.
Related
