A top Trump economic adviser says he doesn't believe systemic racism exists in the US and adds 'law and order is good for growth'

• Larry Kudlow said he didn't believe systemic racism was a problem in the US.
• "Law and order is good for growth. Law and order is good for families. Law and order is good for people of all colors — it's a unifying message," Kudlow told reporters on Wednesday.
• The striking remarks come in the wake of George Floyd's killing in police custody two weeks ago, which sparked mass demonstrations calling for sweeping policing reforms and economic justice for Black Americans.

National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow told reporters on Tuesday that he didn't believe systemic racism existed in the US, adding that "law and order is good for growth."

The striking remarks come as Black Lives Matter demonstrations sweep the country and lawmakers denounce racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Kudlow, a top official in the Trump administration, said: "I don't believe there's systemic racism in the US. I'm not going to go into a long riff on it."

When he was pressed by reporters, Kudlow downplayed concerns of systemic racism within law enforcement.

"I think the harm comes when you have very bad apples on the law-enforcement side. What was done to Mr. Floyd was abysmal," he said. "I believe everyone in this country agrees with that."

—Jeffrey Stein (@JStein_WaPo) June 10, 2020

He added: "I think part of this coming back together — the president is a law-and-order man. Law and order is good for growth. Law and order is good for families. Law and order is good for people of all colors — it's a unifying message."

Kudlow is the latest Trump administration official to call into question the existence of systemic racism. Both Attorney General William Barr and national security adviser Robert O'Brien said they did not believe it was a problem in the US.

But experts say that Black Americans face vast economic inequalities in wages, household wealth, and employment rates, which has greatly reduced their financial security and denied them a fair shot at prosperity.

"Racism generates exclusion, discrimination, oppression, exploitation in a number of ways," Valerie Wilson, the director of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute's program on race, ethnicity, and the economy, recently told Business Insider. "It's not just physical violence."

About half of all Black adults are employed in the US, according to the Labor Department. In the latest jobs report, the unemployment rate for white Americans dropped nearly 2 percentage points, while it ticked upward for Black Americans.

About 75% of Americans who were polled by Monmouth University said they believed racial discrimination was a big problem in the US.