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Republicans declined to criticize Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Steve Bannon as the chief strategist to his impending administration, despite the latter’s record of promoting white supremacy.



As lawmakers returned to Washington on Tuesday for the first time since Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, Democrats swiftly called on the president-elect to rescind his hiring of Bannon.

But Republicans said it was time to unify behind Trump and sidestepped questions on his promotion of antisemitic, anti-Muslim and misogynist content while overseeing the “alt-right” website Breitbart News.

“I don’t want to accuse a man of being antisemitic or racist whom I’ve never met,” said Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina told reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about the Bannon appointment.

“I’ve never met him. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door,” he said, before adding of Breitbart: “The website in question was a friendly site to the alt-right. I don’t like them and they don’t like me and I’m glad.”

Marco Rubio said he had “no reaction” to the Bannon news, even though the former Breitbart chairman used his website to try and undermine the Florida senator’s political career.

“The president has a right to choose his own staff,” said Rubio, who ran unsuccessfully against Trump for the Republican nomination but was re-elected to a second term in the Senate last week.

Rubio also dismissed speculation that he might serve in Trump’s cabinet, saying he had not spoken with the president-elect’s transition team and would “prefer to be in the Senate”.

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