President Donald Trump said Wednesday that members of minority groups "want" and "need" more police protection than other Americans, and blamed Democrats for a "crazy" number of killings in Chicago and other large cities.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, the Fox News Channel anchor who also is a friend and informal adviser to the president, Trump said police in big cities are "not allowed" to respond to what he described as rampant crime because "they have to be politically correct."
"Minorities want police protection more than anybody," Trump said. "They need it more than anybody. What's going on is crazy. And you look at some of these inner cities where it's just out of control."
Trump's comments came during a discussion of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who have demonstrated during the playing of the national anthem in protest of what they see as injustices against blacks in this country.
[PRESIDENT TRUMP: Timeline, appointments, executive orders + guide to actions in first 200 days]
Trump placed the blame for what he described as rampant murders and shootings on Democratic politicians.
"Don't forget, the Democrats have ruled the inner cities for 100 years," he said. "This is their rule."
In the Fox interview, Trump also spoke about economic policy and sought to connect the surge in the stock market since his election to the growing federal debt, which recently eclipsed $20 trillion.
"The country -- we took it over and owed over $20 trillion," Trump said. "As you know, the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country. So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. ... So you could say, in one sense, we're really increasing values. And maybe in a sense we're reducing debt."
The stock market and federal debt levels are not connected. The stock market could reverse its gains and all of those profits could disappear, and the debt would remain at around $20 trillion. And the deficit, which is the gap between government revenue and spending that adds to the debt, has actually grown since Trump took office.
A Section on 10/12/2017