Now Trump is disavowing them.
âI disavow and condemn them,â President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday during a wide-ranging interview with staff members at The New York Times.
The paper pressed Trump on whether white nationalist groups had helped empower his candidacy, citing a speech over the weekend by Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute.
Spencer opened a meeting of the group, declaring, âHail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!â prompting attendees to stand up and cry, âHeil Trump!â while giving Nazi salutes.
âItâs not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why,â Trump told NYT.
Spencer has described his movement as an âintellectual vanguard that can complete Trump.â During his campaign, Trump, either inadvertently or carelessly, retweeted comments from other nationalist Twitter accounts, including a famous quotation from Benito Mussolini, the 20th century fascist leader of Italy.
Trump also called for a âtotal and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United Statesâ in December, but later backtracked, calling instead for âextreme vetting.â
Spencer told the Associated Press that he was disappointed in Trumpâs comments but said he understands âwhere he is coming from politically and practically,â adding that he will âwait and seeâ how the administration takes shape.
Spencer said Trump needs people like him âto actualize the populism that fueled his campaign.â
During the NPI conference, which was met with protests, The Intercept asked what Spencer wished for the Trump administration to do in a multicultural country like America, specifically for undocumented immigrants and their children. Spencer said they âhave to go home. And they can go home again, they can connect with their real identity.â
When pressed to explain what that would mean for children who had grown up in the US, Spencer insisted they had a âreal identityâ that was other than American. âYou can reconnect with who you really are,â Spencer said, âfor a Mexican-American [that] would be about being in Mexico. For an African, it would be about being in Africa.â
READ MORE: Twitter suspends white nationalist accounts after publishing new rules
Spencer has played down any direct connection with Trump but told The Intercept, âwe have a psychic connection.â
âWe recognize an essential lie of American race relations. We donât exploit other groups. We donât gain anything from their presence.”
“They need us and not the other way around,â said Spencer during the conference.
âAmerica was until this past century, a white country designed for ourselves and our prosperity. It is our creation. It is our inheritance and it belongs to us.â
 In a related story, Politico editor Michael Hirsh resigned after publishing the home addresses of Spencer in Montana and Arlington, Virginia with a post on his Facebook page.
âStop whining about Richard B. Spencer, Nazi, and exercise your rights as decent Americans,â Hirsh wrote in a public Facebook post. âHere are his addresses.â
When pressed by a comment to his post about whether Hirsh was advocating a non-violent protest outside of Spencerâs home or other similar non-violent response, Hirsh said: âI wasnât thinking of a f***ing letter, Doug. He lives part of the time next door to me in Arlington. Our grandfathers brought baseball bats to Bund meetings. Want to join me?â
Hirsh then deleted the post but not before the Daily Caller had a screen shot.
âThe posts were clearly outside the bounds of acceptable discourse, and Politico editors regard them as a serious lapse of newsroom standards.â Politico Editor-In-Chief John Harris and Editor Carrie Budoff Brown told the Daily Caller. âThey crossed a line in ways that the publication will not defend, and editors are taking steps to ensure that such a lapse does not occur again.â
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