President Trump at an event about law enforcement at the White House on Monday. Trump has repeatedly downplayed the disproportionate impact of police violence on African-Americans.
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images
President Trump at an event about law enforcement at the White House on Monday. Trump has repeatedly downplayed the disproportionate impact of police violence on African-Americans.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Updated 5:45 p.m. ET
President Trump dismissed outrage over police killings, saying Tuesday that “more white people” are killed by police than Blacks.
“So are white people!” Trump said when asked in an interview with CBS News why so many African Americans have been killed at the hands of police. “So are white people! What a terrible question to ask.”
Trump added that “more white people, by the way” are killed by police than Black people.
More white people overall may be killed by police annually, but Black Americans are killed at a far higher rate.
According to a database of police shootings since 2015 compiled by the Washington Post, 1,301 Black people have been killed by the police in the past five-and-a-half years; 2,495 whites were killed.
But, importantly, African Americans, who make up a far smaller portion of the population than whites, are killed at a rate more than twice that of whites.
In another comment also sure to inflame racial tension, Trump also said “people love” the Confederate battle flag and he considers it a “freedom of speech” issue. He called it it “very simple” and dismissed the idea that the flag is hurtful to Black Americans and others who see it as a racist symbol.
“Well, people love it, and I know people that like the Confederate flag, and they’re not thinking about slavery,” Trump said when asked whether he understood the pain it caused people because of its association with slavery.
An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll last month found two-thirds of Americans believed President Trump had increased tensions after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. That poll was conducted after police forcibly removed peaceful protesters near the White House so Trump could pose with a Bible outside a partially burned church.
In an ABC News/Ipsos poll out last Friday, two-thirds of Americans also said they disapproved of the way President Trump is handling race relations. That comes as a majority of Americans also say they disapprove of the job he’s doing when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.
All of it has led to what is perhaps the nadir of Trump’s political power. Another NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll from late June found a record 58% disapprove of the job Trump’s doing overall with a whopping 49% strongly disapproving of the job he’s doing.
That is a record level of intense disapproval that has certainly had an effect on his overall political standing against Democrat Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent this fall as Trump faces reelection. Trump is routinely behind Biden in head-to-head general-election match-up polls. In an average of the polls, Biden leads Trump by 9 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.
That’s why Trump has been asking for more debates and attacking Biden’s mental capacity and record.
“He never did anything except make very bad decisions,” Trump said from the Rose Garden at the White House Tuesday in what sounded more like a campaign-style event rather than a news conference.
In other excerpts of the CBS interview, Trump also said the city of Los Angeles had made a “mistake” by deciding to resume school classes in the fall via distance learning rather than reopening classroom.
“A decision like that is politics,” he claimed, accusing Democrats of wanting to hurt his chances in the November election by keeping schools closed.
California ordered the shut down of bars, indoor dining and movie theaters, as coronavirus cases have started to go back up. As for the claim of politics, no Republican has won California since 1988, and Democrat Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by 30 points.
