Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsTrump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status White House officials voted by show of hands on 2018 family separations: report MORE told the leader of a black police group that President Trump was joking when he suggested to police officers last week that it was OK if they were rough with suspects, according to a report by CNN.

Sessions said the Trump remarks were "done in jest,” Perry Tarrant, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, said at a news conference Tuesday reported by CNN.

Sessions nonetheless criticized the Trump comments, according to Tarrant, saying they "had the opportunity to impact or detract from" efforts by police to improve their relations with the communities they serve.

Tarrant’s comments followed a speech Sessions gave at the group’s training convention.

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Trump came under scrutiny for comments he made during a speech in Long Island last week about the MS-13 gang.

"When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddywagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, ‘Please don't be too nice," the president said to the crowd of police officers.

“Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?” Trump explained. “Like, don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody. Don’t hit their head? I said, ‘You can take the hand away, OK?’”