US President Donald Trump conceded there is "some" systemic racism in the country, but insisted levels are declining, according to an interview in the Wall Street Journal.
"I'd like to think there is not," Trump is quoted as saying. "But unfortunately, there probably is some. I would also say it's very substantially less than it used to be."
His administration has been at pains to quash the idea of systemic racism, trying to focus attention on the idea of "bad apples" within institutions like police departments.
Trump also took credit for popularizing the Africa-American commemoration of Juneteenth, marked on June 19 to mark the end of slavery in the United States.
"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous," Trump said. "It's actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it."
The event is marked regularly by the black community and has steadily been gaining traction among the rest of the country, with some companies and states planning on making it a paid holiday.
Trump had planned to hold a rally on Juneteeth in Tulsa, which in 1921 was the scene of a race massacre, when whites turned on black businesses. He changed the rally date amid an outcry.
In recent interviews, Trump has attempted to walk back some of his hard lines during recent protests against police brutality and racism, going so far as to say that professional American football leagues should reconsider hiring Colin Kaepernick.
The president has long slammed Kaepernick and other players who knelt during the national anthem, which they did to protest police brutality.
