This story originally appeared on “>published by The Atlantic shows parts of a speech delivered by Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist within the alt-right movement, at the National Policy Institute’s annual conference espousing anti-Semitic rhetoric and celebrating Trump’s win.
“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group,” Trump “>called for Trump to personally condemn the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric espoused at Saturday’s white nationalist conference the same way he rebuked unpleasant comments made by the cast of ‘Hamilton’ and Saturday Night Live.
“President-elect Trump needs to specifically condemn and distance himself from the racism and anti-Semitism spewed there,” Foxman told Jewish Insider. “If he takes the time and effort to personally criticize SNL or the “Hamilton” episode, then certainly this event deserves his personal attention and voice.”
Contacted by Jewish Insider on Tuesday to follow up on Trump’s statement, Foxman said, “It was a good beginning.”
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer suggested that the media’s insistence on pressing Trump to condemn the alt-right and anti-Semitism is getting “a bit preposterous.”
“When is it going to be enough?” Spicer told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer when asked if Trump was going to give a formal speech denouncing his white supremacist and neo-Nazi supporters. “He has said that he refutes that, that’s not the kind of movement he wants the support or see energized by him. That’s not the kind of people he wants to be associated with. I don’t know how many more times Donald Trump can make his position clear, but he’s been crystal-clear for a long time and over and over and over again with every tweet, utterance, you name it, Facebook post, he has to somehow respond to it. He has made his position clear. It’s time that we accept that position and move on. That’s not his focus.”
