Trump said he feels no responsibility to understand the pain Black Americans experience and suggested that those who do 'drank the Kool-Aid'

• President Donald Trump told the journalist Bob Woodward in an interview on June 19 that he felt no responsibility to better understand the pain of many Black Americans.
• "You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? Just listen to you," Trump told Woodward when asked about race relations in the US.
• Trump made the remarks in a series of interviews that Woodward detailed in his new book, "Rage."

In an interview with the renowned journalist Bob Woodward on June 19, President Donald Trump shrugged off any responsibility to better understand how Black Americans feel.

Woodward suggested in the interview — which The Washington Post and CNN published audio clips of on Wednesday — that people like him and Trump who embody white privilege should work to understand Black people's pain and anger.

"We share one thing in common: We're white, privileged," Woodward told Trump. "My father was a lawyer and a judge in Illinois, and we know what your dad did.

"Do you have any sense that that privilege has isolated and put you in a cave, to a certain extent, as it put me and I think lots of white, privileged people in a cave? And that we have to work our way out of it to understand the anger and the pain particularly Black people feel in this country?"

Trump seemed to mock Woodward and flatly disregarded the sentiment.

"No. You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn't you? Just listen to you," he responded. "Wow. No, I don't feel that at all."

Trump made the remarks in a series of interviews over the past several months for Woodward's new book, "Rage," set to be released on Tuesday. Woodward has written more than a dozen books on American politics and is best known for his investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal.

In the June interview, Woodward pointed out the severe inequities Black people face due to decades of discrimination and racism. Trump did not engage in that discussion and instead touted his economic numbers and recited his infamous line that he has done more for Black Americans than any other president except Abraham Lincoln, The Post reported.

The comments align with Trump's apparent disconnect to the racial reckoning in the country and the Black Lives Matter protests that have unfolded in cities since George Floyd's death in police custody in late May. The president has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that Black people are systemically discriminated against and are disproportionately killed by the police.