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 5:20 p.m. ET

President Trump continued to inflame racial divisions Tuesday, dismissing a question in an interview with CBS News about why so many African-Americans have been killed at the hands of police.

“So are white people!” Trump said. “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.

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 African-Americans make up a far smaller portion of the population and are killed at more than twice the rate as whites are.

Trump also said the Confederate battle flag is 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.

In 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.