Again with the apples. Now comes President Trump, not only blaming “bad apples” for police brutality but asserting that “there are not too many of them.” The problem, in his view, is just “a few” bad cops — and that’s to be expected. “You always have a bad apple, no matter where you go,” Trump offered at a roundtable in Dallas.

No surprise there. A procession of senior Trump officials — among them his attorney general, acting homeland security secretary and national security adviser — have dismissed the notion that systemic racism infects police departments or the criminal justice system more broadly.

Trump might have heard a different perspective in Dallas had he bothered to include the local police chief, sheriff or district attorney, all African Americans. The district attorney, John Creuzot, would have been enlightening. “Well, that’s not reality,” Creuzot told CNN’s Chris Cuomo about Trump’s bad-apples assessment. “I think any serious person who wants to be honest about these issues understands that there is systemic racism not only in police institutions […]