In March 2016, Breitbart Media published a primer on the “alt-right” movement, in which prominent white nationalist Richard Spencer was depicted as a key ideological founder. “The media empire of the modern-day alternative right coalesced around Richard Spencer during his editorship of Taki’s Magazine,” wrote Breitbart author Allum Bokhari and technology editor Milo Yiannopoulos. “In 2010, Spencer founded AlternativeRight.com, which would become a center of alt-right thought.”

The primer takes on new significance, given that Stephen Bannon—a self-proclaimed leader in the alt-right movement—headed Breitbart before he was appointed as the chief strategist and senior counselor of Donald Trump's administration and the head of the president-elect’s campaign. With Bannon poised to take on a powerful political position, many are outraged and fearful that organized white supremacists will have another champion inside the White House.

A new interview with alt-right leader Spencer should dispel any doubt that the alt-right movement that Bannon lauds is white nationalist in nature.

“What I would ultimately want is this ideal of a safe space for Europeans,” Spencer NPR host Kelly McEvers in an interview aired Thursday. Spencer heads the National Policy Institute and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of the country’s most successful young white nationalist leaders—a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old, a kind of professional racist in khakis.”

He described his ideal white nation: “This is a big empire that would accept all Europeans. It would be a place for Germans, it would be a place for Slavs, it would be a place for Celts, it would be a place for white Americans and so on.”

“What I’m saying is that Europeans defined America, they defined what it is,” Spencer continued. “European people were the indispensable people who defined this nation socially and politically and culturally and demographically, obviously. I care about us more.”

McEvers, notably, maintained a respectful, friendly tone throughout the course of the interview, ultimately giving Spencer a platform to lay out his hateful, white nationalist agenda in a polished, calm manner. The NPR host argued that she took this approach because Americans need to hear the beliefs of the man behind a movement that now has a direct line to the White House. Yet, as Kalli Holloway has previously reported for AlterNet, NPR has played a role in whitewashing the racism of Breitbart and Bannon by normalizing their defenders.

Meanwhile, Bannon has developed a platform for the 'alt-right' to spew hatred. Under Bannon’s watch, Breitbart attracted large numbers of white nationalist readers like Spencer and became a platform for racist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynist rhetoric. In the weeks following a self-proclaimed white supremacist’s mass killing of African-Americans at the the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Breitbart published an article celebrating the Confederate flag and calling on Americans to “hoist it high and proud.”

Bannon’s appointment provoked widespread objection, with hundreds of thousands signing petitions denouncing his racism. Facing pressure from their constituents, more than 150 members of the House are calling on Trump to rescind Bannon’s appointment. The Jewish organization “If Not Now,” which opposes the Israeli occupation, on Thursday occupied the the Washington, D.C. office that hosts the Trump transition team, chanting “Fire Bannon.”

Yet Bannon also has prominent defenders, with Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus recently lauding him as “very wise and smart.” Bannon’s backers also include Alan Dershowitz, an emeritus law professor at Harvard University, as well as the Zionist Organization of America, which accuses Bannon’s critics of “character assassination.” Not surprisingly, Spencer was thrilled with the ascent of Bannon, whose backers include a bevy white nationalists and Nazis.

“This is the first time we’ve really entered the mainstream,” Spencer told NPR, “and we’re not going away.”