President Obama said that despite rising racial tensions in major American cities, the nation as a whole is now “less racially divided.”
In an interview with NPR News that will air Monday, Obama weighed in on the protests in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City following the police killings of black men, which have sparked a broader debate about law-enforcement practices in predominantly minority communities.
“No, I actually think that it’s probably in its day-to-day interactions less racially divided,” Obama told NPR, according to early excerpts of the interview.
Since Obama left Washington for a vacation in Hawaii, another controversy erupted when two New York City police officers were killed in Brooklyn as retaliation for the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in Staten Island.
However, the interview was conducted before that incident.
On a separate matter, Obama also predicted that Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress would have more incentive to work with him in 2015.
“Now you’ve got Republicans in a position where it’s not enough for them simply to grind the wheels of Congress to a halt and then blame me,” he said.
Different portions of the interview will air Monday through Wednesday, NPR said.
