US President-elect Donald Trump has renounced the "alt-right" white supremacist group that has celebrated his election to the White House with Nazi salutes and cries of "Hail Trump!"
In a wide-ranging interview with reporters at The New York Times, the Republican disavowed the support of an alt-right group that met in Washington on Saturday, saying that he did not want to "energise" a movement that has become the modern face of white nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism.
“It’s not a group I want to energise and if they are energised, I want to look into it and find out why,” said the Republican novice politician who will be inaugurated the 45th US president on January 20th.
"I disavow and condemn them," Mr Trump replied when asked specifically about the meeting of the National Policy Institute, a far-right think tank that pushes the alt-right agenda, near the White House.
Nazi salute
Some of the group's supporters raised their hands in a Nazi salute as its leader Richard Spencer shouted: "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" Spencer, who has been credited with coining the phrase alt-right, was filmed telling about 200 supporters that the United States belongs to white people.
Mr Trump has drawn criticism from Democrats, minorities and anti-racism groups following his appointment of Steve Bannon, former head of the Breitbart News website that is linked to the alt-right, as his chief strategist.
The president-elect defended the political campaigner who oversaw the final stages of his winning campaign and who will be his senior counsellor in the Oval Office.
“If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him,” he said.
Distancing himself from one of the most contentious promises of his presidential campaign, Mr Trump said that he said he did not "feel very strongly" about prosecuting his one-time Democratic opponent for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, saying that it would be "very divisive" for the country.
Alienating
The Republican risks alienating his most ardent supporters from the campaign that chanted “lock her up” at his rallies. “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” said Mr Trump who promised during a presidential debate in October to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Mrs Clinton.
"My inclination would be for whatever power I have on the matter is to say let's go forward. This has been looked at for so long, ad nauseum," he told the New York Times at the meeting at its Manhattan offices.
The interview touched on a variety of subjects. He stepped back from a past claim that climate change was a “hoax” started by the Chinese, saying that there was “some connectivity” between climate change and human activity.
Mr Trump said that he would keep “an open mind” on the Paris climate change agreement, which he said during the campaign he would withdraw the US from.
Peace agreement
He suggested that his son-in-law Jared Kushner, the property developer and newspaper owner, could help broker a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr Trump said that he did not think the US should be a “nation-builder”. Addressing potential conflicts of interest, he said he could simultaneously run his business and the country “perfectly”.
“The law’s totally on my side – the president can’t have a conflict of interest,” he said, according to online posts published by the newspaper’s reporters.
Referring to the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives and the party's leader in the US Senate respectively with whom he clashed during the presidential campaign, he said: "Paul Ryan, right now, loves me. Mitch McConnell loves me."
