Donald Trump disavowed the white nationalist alt-right movement in a meeting with reporters at the New York Times on Tuesday, according to tweets from reporters in attendance.



Trump reportedly said that "I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," and "if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why."

Trump has been reluctant in the past to disavow the racists who have enthusiastically supported his campaign. He was slow to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke after being asked about him in an interview with Jake Tapper this spring. In an interview with Anderson Cooper after Hillary Clinton gave a speech this summer pointing out Trump's ties to the movement, Trump professed ignorance, saying "nobody even knows what it is.” In that interview, Trump even denied the existence of the alt-right, saying, "There is no alt-right."

Trump's soon-to-be White House chief strategist, Steve Bannon, formerly ran Breitbart News and has publicly described the site as a "platform for the alt-right." In the Times interview, Trump also defended Breitbart, which has covered Trump very favorably since before he announced his candidacy.