Trump's Charlottesville Press Conference 7

[7]

Infrastructure question, go ahead.
QUESTION: Should the statue of Robert E. Lee stay up?
TRUMP: I would say that's up to a local town, community, or the federal government, depending on where it is located.
QUESTION: Are you against the Confederacy?
QUESTION: How concerned are you about race relations in America? And do you think things have gotten worse or better since you took office?
TRUMP: I think they've gotten better or the same – look, they've been frayed for a long time. And you can ask President Obama about that, because he'd make speeches about it.
But I believe that the fact that I brought in – it will be soon, millions of jobs, you see where companies are moving back into our country, I think that's going to have a tremendous positive impact on race relations. We have companies coming back into our country. We have two car companies that just announced. We have Foxconn in Wisconsin just announce. We have many companies I say pouring back into the country.
I think that's going to have a huge, positive impact on race relations. 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.
And I'll tell you, we're spending a lot of money on the inner cities. We're going to fix – we're fixing the inner cities. We're doing far more than anybody's done with respect to the inner cities. It's a priority for me. And it's very important.
(CROSSTALK)

[a]
Should statues of Lee stay up? Local decision.
Good answer. I usually deride illicitly misinterpreting such questions as political/legal/procedural ones...but in this case, I think it's the best way to go.

[b]
Have race relations gotten better or worse? Is anything other than answering 'worse' going to be considered acceptable? It's hard not to say 'worse' in the wake of C'ville... Dunno whether this is the sort of thing that can be quantified. Perhaps he should have said something like This was a difficult weekend for the nation, and we shouldn't rush to conclude that it is a trend rather than a blip...  But Trump doesn't give such answers.