U.S. President Donald Trump was asked how race relations in America could be improved — and his solution might not seem too obvious to some.
“I think if we continue to create jobs at levels that I am creating jobs, I think that is going to have a tremendous impact, positive impact, on race relations,” Trump told reporters Tuesday at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City.
Trump also said he expects to see an increase in wages, which would also help to bring Americans together.
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“I believe wages will start going up — they haven’t gone up for a long time,” Trump said. “That will have a tremendously positive impact on race relations.”
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Over the weekend, thousands of white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
They were met by a group of counter-protestors. Massive fights broke out and the violence escalated when a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, leaving one woman dead and 19 others injured.
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The president said he believes race relations in America have not gotten any worse during his time as president.
“I think they have gotten better — or the same,” Trump explained. “They’ve been frayed for a long time, and you can ask President Obama about that because he’d make speeches about it.”
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Trump went on to again say that money was the cure of all evil.
“We have many companies … pouring back into the country,” Trump explained. “I think that’s going to have a huge, positive impact on race relations.
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“You know why? It’s jobs. What people want now, they want jobs. They want great jobs with good pay, and when they have that, you watch how race relations will be.”
The U.S. president went on to say that a focus of his administration was on fixing inner cities.
“I’ll tell you, we’re spending a lot of money on the inner cities,” he said. “We’re fixing the inner cities. We’re doing far more than anybody’s done with respect to the inner cities.”
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