President-elect Trump told New York Times reporters and staff on Tuesday that he disavows the alt-right groups that support him, which many say are effectively neo-Nazi, white surpemacist groups.
“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group,” Trump said, according to a tweet from New York Times reporter Mike Grynbaum. “It’s not a group I want to energize. And if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.”
Trump also defended Steve Bannon, his senior adviser who many have charged as a white nationalist. But Trump said those reports have been “very hard on him.”
“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, adding that there are “a lot of people coming to his defense right now.”
Trump’s remarks came a day after the leader of an alt-right leader held a meeting in Washington that featured Nazi-style salutes, prompting some to fear that Trump is encouraging these sorts of groups.
When asked by the Times if he encouraged groups like that, Trump said, “I don’t think so.” He also said, “The African-American community liked me. They liked what I was saying.”
Trump met with the Times after canceling the meeting just hours before, complaining that the paper has been unfair to him and that its representatives were attempting to change specified ground rules ahead of the meeting.
A Times spokeswoman denied that charge, and the paper later reported that Trump’s expected chief of staff, Reince Priebus, incorrectly told the president-elect that the paper changed the terms of the meeting, which is what prompted Trump to cancel initially.
